Working in the school garden enables pupils to interdisciplinary acquisition of knowledge and skills that will be able to contribute to a higher quality of life in the future. Due to numerous positive effects, we have been striving to establish and preserve school gardens both abroad and in Slovenia since the middle of the 19th century. Despite the fact that many elementary schools have managed to preserve the school garden, unfortunately, garden work has not yet been successfully implemented successfully enough in everyday lessons. With the help of literature, we have found some obstacles that may arise in the preservation and establishment of school gardens. Thus, we also looked for and emphasized the positive effects that working in the school garden brings to the development of children and adolescents, and also found some good examples of the use of school garden in everyday lessons.
The main purpose of the master's thesis was to find good examples of the learning use of the school garden and connect them with existing curricula that need to be followed daily in the pedagogical process. With the help of the descriptive method, we found already existing examples of successful use of the school garden and connected them with Slovenian curricula. Our sample research includes articles about the school garden, which were published in The American Biology Teacher from 2010 to 2020. By examining the articles in detail using a form covering 12 items, and using the appropriate coder, we found out the share and type of topics about the school garden. Since the main goal of our research was to find topics about the school garden that will be useful in Slovenia, we also evaluated this aspect of each proposal.
The study found many interesting examples of the learning use of a school garden and most of them corresponded to teaching at primary and secondary level of education. Examples that corresponded to the level of education sought are feasible in Slovenia, coinciding with our curricula and are suitable for use in everyday lessons.
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