Biodiverse edible schools: Linking healthy food, school gardens and local urban biodiversity

Abstract

Policies to move us towards livable, sustainable cities need involvement and support from urban societies. For children in particular, as future players in urban development, experiences in nature provide a basis for further interactions with nature and increase awareness of environmental issues. However, children are spending less and less time in nature, which threatens the development of environmentally aware behavior and can have negative health impacts.Schools are critical for environmental education, and there is a long tradition of schools serving as sites of food production and consumption, although consideration of biodiversity is often absent. We argue here for a concept of “biodiverse edible schools” that link food production and consumption with local biodiversity. This increases opportunities for children to better understand both urban nature and healthy food. We highlight the role of edible wild plants as a promising vector for coupling the usually distinct fields of food and biodiversity in the daily life of students.Using a case study from Berlin, Germany, we illustrate how stakeholders from different spheres can work together to bring critical components of biodiverse edible schools to reality. The components of our project include (1) a school kitchen supplied with food from regional producers; (2) a garden on the school’s grounds for producing food; (3) a neighboring vacant wild site as a habitat for wild edible plants, and, most importantly, (4) collaborative activities in planning, managing, and using the garden and the wild site.This case study demonstrates opportunities and challenges for policies aimed at strengthening the bonds between children and nature, helping them better understand food production, and improving their diet. The concept of biodiverse edible schools highlights promising functions of wild urban land as an informal component of urban green infrastructure that can jointly support cultural and provisioning ecosystem services in cities.