School gardens are part of many schools. Especially in primary schools, but also in secondary schools, they are used as a learning space and experience space for the pupils. Their importance for the development of cognitive and emotional-affective abilities of pupils is empirically well proven. It is also empirically well proven that exposure to nature has an influence on the prosocial behavior of children and adults. However, there is a lack of studies investigating the effect of the stay in the school garden on the social behavior of pupils in secondary class. To investigate whether a school garden is a good environment for social learning, a self-report study and standardized observations with sixth-grade pupils were carried out. Thus, the socially competent behavior of the pupils (communication and cooperation) and their emotions could be analyzed. In order to provide emotional access to the scientific content of biology lessons and to strengthen social learning, each pupil was responsible for their own plant and the group bed over a period of 10 weeks. The design of the lessons followed the principles of basic needs—competence, autonomy, and relatedness—of the Self Determination Theory. The observations were made during a 90-min class, in the school garden as well in the classroom. The 31 girls and 22 boys, aged 11–12 years, changed weekly between the garden and the classroom. Over 150 observations were made in the school garden (82) and in the classroom (68). In summary, pupils showed more socially competent behavior in school garden lessons than in classroom lessons. The school garden lessons, designed according to the basic needs, seem to create favorable incentives for social learning. Due to frequent social interactions, it can be assumed that learning activities in school gardens can promote emotional and social competence.
Children and adolescents spend a large part of their day at school. Physical and mental problems result from physical inactivity, sitting positions at work and "indoor lifestyle" (WHO 2004). Therefore, health education is a major topic in school. Biology classes (scholastic) can make an important contribution in this context. Health as a person's state is composed by physical, mental and social aspects (WHO 1946, Hurrelmann 2010). The presence of nature can have positive effects on all components of the (subjective) well-being of humans at all ages. The fact has already been well proved by science (Ulrich 1984; Health Council of the Netherlands 2004; Barton/Pretty 2010). In the scholastic context environment or gardens hold various functions as (special) places for the contact between humans and nature: They are areas for explorative learning, they provide manifold sources for interdisciplinary teaching, they are spots to generate skills and recovery and they are places for nutritional and environmental education (Blair 2009; Jäckel 2010). Generally, school gardens may take over a significant function in view of health education and wellness of children and adolescents. As a consequence, practical work and other activities in a school garden let the place become a point for physical agitation, relaxation and stress reduction. School garden classes and school garden practice in most of the cases are only held in the lower age groups of pupils (primary school). An analysis shall show that school gardens also could be employed for the health education in higher grades (11th and 12th grade). Representative a course of pre-study students (teacher students and / or prospective teachers) of the second semester were interviewed and tested in the educational garden of the University of Rostock about their subjective well-being. As a result, it was proved that garden activities have highly positive effects on self-esteem.
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