RETURN TO NATURE: THE ROLE OF SCHOOL GARDENS IN EDUCATION AND HUMAN WELL-BEING
RETURN TO NATURE: THE ROLE OF SCHOOL GARDENS IN EDUCATION AND HUMAN WELL-BEING

Summary/Abstract: The article argues for (re)introducing school gardening as a systematic component of education - embedded in the core curriculum - because it supports children's cognitive, emotional, social, and health outcomes while counteracting plant awareness disparity. After outlining the problem of declining child-nature contact and the educational risks of plant blindness, the paper synthesizes historical pedagogical arguments (Pestalozzi, Fröbel, Dewey, Montessori) with contemporary evidence from biology, cognitive science, and pedagogy. From the biological sciences, the paper highlights biophilia, restorative and public-health benefits of nature exposure (e.g., recovery, reduced crime correlates), and specific findings on forest volatiles and physiological responses. From cognitive sciences, it reviews attention-restoration effects of green views, associations between urban greenery and working-memory gains, and experimental evidence that brief hands-on horticulture improves affect and attentional activation more than screen-based analogues. From pedagogy, it frames gardening as experiential and place-based learning that nurtures ecological literacy, agency, and "constructive hope," while noting systemic barriers that suppress outdoor learning (e.g., time, assessment alignment, policy/safety constraints). As a practical response, the paper proposes implementing gardening through a Holistic Education Model (sensibility-functionality-rationality), mapping each dimension to classroom and garden design features and to concrete learning activities (e.g., multisensory "sensory transects," rapid investigations with data visualization, ethical harvest charters, narrative reflection). This model operationalizes gardening as learning about, in, and through nature. The article concludes that gardening is a scientifically substantiated, equity-minded approach to rebuild children's connection with plants, strengthen inquiry-rich science learning, and foster wellbeing, provided curricula, school policies, and teacher development align to make outdoor learning a routine rather than exceptional.

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