An Ecogarden has been recently renovated in the campus of the Education University of Hong Kong, aiming at enhancing the biodiversity conservation function of the campus, as well as, promoting the education for sustainability in the university. Prior to the renovation of the Ecogarden, a qualitative survey has been conducted to reveal the understanding of different stakeholders in establishing Ecogarden on the concepts of biodiversity and its relationship to the function of Ecogarden. Semi-structured interviews have been conducted for three stakeholder groups, namely designers, educators and students (both environmental and non-environmental subject-related). The results indicated that their understanding of biodiversity concept is not good, neither the concept of ecosystem functioning. However, all of them ascertained the role of Ecogarden to conserve the biodiversity on campus (scientific value) and its education values, while the provisional (product-producing) value in biodiversity is the least. This study forms important baseline information for designing educational activities associating with Ecogarden, or other facility with similar nature, to advocate the biodiversity conservation in the community. Copyright © 2017 The 6th AZEC & 33rd ASET Joint International Conference.

Researches find that school gardening provides opportunities for children to connect with natural environments, such as plants, animals and insects. This kind of experiences plays a critical role in shaping children’s life-long attitudes, values, and patterns of behavior toward natural environments, including appreciation of the natural world; opportunities to experience the closeness to nature; as well as respect for other creatures and their living habits. This can also develop their interest in and appreciation of the world around them, in order to develop their positive attitude and behavior related to environmental protection, recycling, reusing and living habits; as well as support children’s emotional and physical health and well-being. This study was a single case study of a Hong Kong school garden. A pre-school was selected purposively, which enabled the collection of qualitative data from children to understand their experiences in connection with the gardening environment. Multiple data collection methods included unstructured, participant and non-participant observations, as well as semi-structured individual and group interviews. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the findings. The findings highlight a number of areas that children got the senses of loving and protecting the natural environment. Copyright © 2017 第八屆兩岸四地可持續發展教育論壇.

School gardens have become popular in schools globally in the last decade as a response to concerns over societal problems and learning. School gardening provides direct experiences to children and benefits them by offering open environment for them to learn from the nature, transforming the way children perceive learning. This study is based on the theoretical framework in Experiential Learning. Dewey believes that a school garden could provide connection between children and their daily environment. He posits that all learning takes place within social context, and that experiential learning should allow knowledge to be organized in real-life experiences within that social environment, which is the first step to helping children to become lifelong learners. This study adopted an inductive approach and used qualitative case study methods in a purposive Hong Kong kindergarten. The research questions were how the gardening workshops implemented in the school gardens and what the children learned when they took part in the gardening workshops. Unstructured and impressionistic observations, semi-structured individual and group interviews, documentation and physical artifact were used to collect information. This study found that the children had less than expected experiential learning during the process of gardening workshops. Less choice, less free time for children to explore and interact with the garden environment and people, more waiting time, lots of structured and controlled interaction through adults’ regulations, rules and guidance, as well as influence of adults’ different strategies on children’s performance were the reasons found.