“We never even touched plants this way”: school gardens as an embodied context for motivating environmental actions

Abstract

A critical objective of environmental education (EE) is sustained and active care for the natural world. Numerous studies point to the inadequacy of information-centered pedagogies in motivating such ecologically responsive action. The primacy of action in effectively addressing environmental issues calls for conceptions of EE that emphasize the conative and affective domains of the human mind. While recent research studies have recognized the significance of affective approaches in EE, the role of sensory and embodied engagements, which ground such affective encounters, are relatively less understood. Based on a year-long facilitation of a school terrace-garden in a metropolitan city, we outline how situated and embodied interactions can foster an understanding of diverse ecological practices, and thus a different way of being with the natural world. The study indicates that multi-modal sensorimotor experiences, and the possibility of sharing these with others, motivate children to expand their sphere of environmental activities beyond the site of learning. Specifically, students extended their care-based interactions with the garden to their communities and broader ecological issues. These findings indicate that integrative forms of situated and embodied interactions with the living world can provide the generative force to learn, act, care, and live in ways that encourage ecological flourishing.