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Garden learning - imaginative ecological education for the educator

6/27/2018

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I'm experimenting with 1 minute movies to capture learning that can be gained from the natural environment of a garden. I have been influenced by Gillian Judson's idea of Imaginative Ecological Education http://ierg.ca/IEE/ and Walking Curriculum.

Imaginative Ecological Education is a place-based and context / situation specific approach to learning which aims to develop learners’ somatic (bodily), emotional, and imaginative bonds with the natural world generally, and with specific places in particular. 
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​Gillian uses three imaginative cognitive tools to help us make sense of the natural world (1):
1 sense of relation: the innate human desire to form relationships and, in this way, to engage with our surroundings. ​
2 emotional attachments with features or objects in the world we encounter or make 
3 Creating or claiming special places/spaces By exploring the natural world and creating special places in it and in our imaginations we not only develop knowledge of the natural context but we develop emotional connections with it. 

I would like to include a fourth tool that uses imagination to connect us in ways that are personally meaningful to our environment.

4 Creating cultural artefacts By making an artefact with cultural meaning that has been grown in the natural world when we connect our imaginations, emotions, physical bodies and creativity to a particular place and moment(s) in time..

Making cultural artefacts such as photographs, drawings, paintings, movies, digital stories, poems or other creatve writings, or any other form of self-expression are important means for us to connect and relate ourselves and our lives to the natural environment. Through the process of making (creating) we create emotional attachments to the environment, and create special places in the environment and in our imaginations. While the product (the artefact) enables us to share our meaning making with others, and this can be facilitated through the sorts of technology I am using here (a blog).

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David Gauntlet (2) shows that the process of making something is ecological in the sense that the act is fundamentally about connecting things that were not connected before to make something new that has value and meaning for the maker.  "Making is connecting because you have to connect things together (materials, ideas, or both) to make something new; Making is connecting because acts of creativity usually involve, at some point, a social dimension and connect us with other people; And making is connecting because through making things and sharing them in the world, we increase our engagement and connection with our social and physical environments."  Making an artefact with personal and cultural meaning in our natural environment using our imagination, draws on all these concepts of 'making is relating and connecting': Carl Rogers' concept of a creative process captures the essence of this process.

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Perhaps the most significant cultural artefacts we create in the natural landscape are our gardens where we play at creating new landscapes within the affordances of the spaces we own or can influence. 'A garden is an actualisation of what city dwellers consider nature to be, a garden is organised wildness' (4). The very idea of a garden that we have created connects directly to Gillian Judson's third cognitive tool 'Creating or claiming special places/spaces'

'Perhaps the most important benefit of gardening is the freedom to establish and define one’s own territory, vital for many animals in creating confidence in the security of the immediate environment. In our own garden we can make our own decisions, give free rein to our creative impulses, make our own mistakes, and learn from them, change our minds, watch and observe the consequences of our actions, gain some insight into natural processes, and tie ourselves to the rhythm of the seasons.'(4:164)

Gardens come in all shapes and sizes, and when cared for by their owners they require imagination in designing the space,  the development of specific knowledge about plants and soils and their nurturing, and effort and resources to develop, maintain and sustain them over a long period of time. They are an important part of our everyday self-expression and become part of our cultural legacy as they are passed from one owner to another. Indeed, as gardeners we are as much curators (I am the third curator of my garden) as we are creators. And through our hands on involvement, they are also the means by which we come to understand the nature of nature as we engage in the process of making and maintaining. Neither a work of nature nor one of art we get to know when they have been finished; we must surprise them in the process of being created so as to understand them to some degree.(J Goethe cited in 5). A view that is shared by Seddon(4) who regards gardening not as a retreat but as an entrée into the world: ‘In one’s own garden, one is in contact with the whole globe, both cognitively and imaginatively’. 

​I will be trying out these ideas and using the approach of growing cultural artefacts inspired by my garden with a small group of education masters students from Beijing Normal University who will be visiting me later this week.  You can see what the BNU students made of the idea here.

Here is my initial experiment in response to the prompt - create a 1min movie (cultural artefact) inspired by the garden that relates the garden and gardening to learning, development, education and/or teaching?

Sources
1 Judson, G. (2018) Cultivating Ecological Understanding and Engagement with the World through Imaginative Ecological Education Lifewide Magazine #20 
http://www.lifewideeducation.uk/magazine.html
2 Gauntlet, D. (2011) Making is Connecting, The social meaning of creativity, from DIY and knitting to YouTube and Web 2.0. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2011, 232 pages

3 Arjen Mulder  https://tuinvanmachines.hetnieuweinstituut.nl/en/lifes-artefacts-tenthousandyear-garden
4 Seddon, G. (1997) Landprints: Reflections on Place and Landscape. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
5 Create Innovation (undated) Between laboratory and garden: an ecology of values 'The Noah Laboratory: Constructing Soil' – John Newling, The Collection, Lincoln. http://createinnovation.org.uk/resources/publications/between-laboratory-and-garden/
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Dragonflies & Damselflies

6/22/2018

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I remember the first time I saw a dragon fly over a lake in a woods when I was about 8 or 9. It's size, beauty and the way it flew made a big impression on me. Now I am able to see them everyday if I take the trouble to ealk over to the pond. Its shallow water, water lilies and sedges, iris's and reeds growing around the edge make it an ideal environment for them. During the middle of the day when the sun is out and its not too windy, they scoot across the pond in a never ending search for small insects. I learnt from the secret world of dragon flies film that they fly at 50km per hour so its not suprising that I had trouble filming them, but I tried. I also learnt that although they live for about 3 years they spend most of this time underwater as nymphs before climbing the stalk of a reed and in the space of 12 hours, metamorphose into a dragonfly in order to reproduce.  

​We have at least three varieties of dragonfly - broad bodied Chasers with bright blue tails, blue and green Emporer's and a copper coloured Common Darter. The habbits of the chasers are different to the emperor. They inhabit a particular part of the bank and the bright blue males pose for the females on a reed or a rock. Females that are attracted fly close and the male the couples with them in mid air and off they fly to procreate. I haven't managed to watch an emperor dragon fly mate but today I managed to film one laying her eggs in the water.

We also have beautiful blue, green and red damselflies with males and females staying connected tandem style to aid the reproductive process. 

Its possible that different species appear at diferent times so I shall keep watching.
Surrey dragonflies 
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Dragonflies in my pond
Damsel flies in my pond
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Doe and fawn

6/21/2018

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It's midsummers day and as I was walking around the garden I caught a glimpse of our resident deer with her new baby. The mother ignored me as I stood and watched from about 30m. 

22/06/18 Sometimes I feel as if the animals see me as part of the landscape. I felt it today as I watched the geese splash around exercising their wings in anticipation of flying lessons which I know must be coming soon. I think because I am spending so much time in the garden I am being allowed to witness things that a less frequent visitor might not see. Today I was down by the pond at around 5pm and as I approached the willow tree near the woods the mother deer shot out from beneath the willow. Jumped through the fence and romped to her hiding spot on the south west corner of the field. The day had been very hot and she must have been sneaking a drink from the pond.
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Three acre wood

6/18/2018

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The wood is a wondrous place. In spring it is so green that it hurts your eyes. But it’s also a fearful place when he wind blows and he trees creak and branches fall. Two or three times a year the when the winds are high trees either snap or are uprooted. Then we have to get a man skilled in the art of felling trees.

According to historical records 150 years ago, in 1868, the wood was populated with mature broad leafed native trees. Then it was nearly 4 acres (compared to 3.2 acres now). According to the London Wildlife Trust who examined it in 1995, it is likely that the woodland was part of a much larger ancient woodland. The wood was once worked for wood (coppice with standards) and it could date back to the 14th century. An ash coppice or underwood was cut back to ground level when it was between 7 and 15 years old and the poles used on the land. The timber trees, or standards would be felled in their prime between 70 and 150 years old. A substantial number of trees in the wood must be of this age.
​I maintain the pathways, a circular path around the edge and a diagonal that I cut across the woods.
A spring line rises in the top of the woods within about 5-10m of the northern boundary. When we have had a lot of rain there is surface water and it ponds near the southern edge. Sedges grow in the area that is wettest.

Trees identified in a 1994 survey include Ash (dominant), Field Maple, Oak, Sycamore. Wild Cherry, and Willow. Shrubs include: Hazel, Elder, Blackthorn, Dogwood, Buckthorn and Buddlieu. There are also climbers – ivey, old man’s beard, sweet byrony, bramble and woody nightshade.

The herb layer contains stinging nettle, coltsfoot, forget-me-knot, gromwell, sauide, creeping buttercup, figwort, bedstraw, sedge, cuckoo pint, dogs mercury, burdock, self-heal, medick, penny royal, thistle, sorrel willow herb and bluebell. Fungi include clouded agavic, cramp apple, dryads saddle, antley and pinwheel.
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Field of long grasses

6/14/2018

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The three acre field, has until this year, been largely left alone. Consequently, it was well on the way to becoming a woodland again with oak, wild cherry and hawthorn saplings springing up all over the place and large areas being taken over by blackberry brambles. On three sides of the field are thick thickets of tangled bushes and trees often accompanied by nettles some of these thickets cover large rabbit warrens and provide hiding places for deer. I cut a path around the edge the field to make it easier to walk or jog around and I walk most days around it several times.
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In a bid to reclaim the field from the woods, I decided I would cut down the thickets on the south side which I did in March. I decided to leave half the field in its wild state just to see what would happen. Then I cut the grass short on the north side and in the first half of the field. I let some of this grow back so the grass is now about a metre long in about two thirds of the field. The species I have identified so far are couch, rye and cocksfoot. When the wind blows the grasses bend and turn in unison sometimes quickly sometimes slowly - the field reminds me of the sea in perpetual motion. Interspersed with grasses are weeds like nettles, thistles and cowslip and occasionally small flowers. 
​I notice there are many more wild flowers along the north side where I cut the grass short in March.  Most days I go for a walk around the field to see what animals are using it. I see lots of rabbits and birds, including a hawk that uses the pylon and transmission cables as a look out post and the occasional fox or deer. If I walk through the long grass I sometimes spot a field mouse scurrying away. Today I heard grass hopers, saw a lady bird and some butterflies and I'm hoping that we will get more over the summer.
soundscape
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Roses

6/4/2018

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Its June and the roses are blooming. We have an old pergola that is completely overgrown with roses. Not only do they festoon the pergola they are deeply entangled with the apple trees next to it. Over three of four weeks their presence dominates the garden and we walk out frequently to look at them. The beauty of the pergola is that we can walk under and amongst them as well as enjoy their presence from the outside. Not only are they beautiful and generous flowers but they support many insects that feed on them and off their nectar and these in turn help pollinate them.  Pollination involves the movement of pollen from one flower to the next, or between the sexual organs of the same flower. I noticed that, although I have several types of rose, the bees seemed to prefer one type - the pale yellow or white roses on the end of the pergola -  seeming to ignore the other larger and more colourful roses. I needn't have worried - less than a week later the bees were tucking in to the pink roses.. it was just a matter of timing and the bees were better than me at judging when a flower was ready for them.
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Celebrating the beauty of daisies and grandma Joan

6/3/2018

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This week we had the sad news that grandma Joan had passed away aged 95. Joan loved flowers and people. As I trundled round the garden cutting the grass and thinking of her and her kindness and generosity to me, I was struck by the simple beauty and generosity of the daisies that covered the bank of the pond. I think its the most beautiful sight I have ever seen in my garden and the memory and this film will always remind me of Joan.

‘Taking in the stunning beauty of oceans, mountains, or vast deserts is one of the most sure-fire ways to feel awe, a powerful emotion that plays an important role in creativity and psychological well-being’.
_Carolyn Gregoire https://www.outsideonline.com/2062221/new-science-creative-brain-nature_  


But we don't have to travel far to be inspired by nature - a field, a woods, a country walk or a garden is all we need.
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    Garden Notes
    My garden keeps me busy and it gives me the exercise I need to keep fit. It also gives me a lot of pleasure and happiness. It enables me to express myself creatively and draws my attention to the beauty and ecology of life. In this blog  I am telling the story of my garden and my involvement and experiences in it through photos, movies, paintings and other artefacts it inspires me to create. 

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    Useful Links
    Wildlife Garden Forum
    Surrey Wildlife Trust 
    Habitat Network
    Plant Identification UK




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