Open Ground Collections of Saint Petersburg Botanic Garden for the Benefit of Botanic and Environmental Education

Abstract

Botanic gardens with their rich collections and scientific resources have a unique potential that attracts the attention of the society to the problems of preserving biodiversity, ensuring environmental education, conserving nature, providing leisure, serving the place for relaxation and entertainment. One of the oldest Botanic gardens of Russia is the Saint Petersburg Botanic Garden of the Komarov Botanic Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences demonstrates the experience of utilizing the open ground collections for Botanic and environmental education. The experts share various aspects of interaction between a Botanic garden and its visitors. The paper provides examples of excursions and other forms of work on the open ground. The paper analyzes the experience of foreign colleagues related to the motivation for visiting Botanic gardens by different age and social groups. The authors provide data of sociological surveys of visitors and the analysis of their motives to visit the Saint Petersburg Botanic Garden in particular. It also shows the growth of interest in the open ground collections.

Night Of Museums In Peter The Great Botanical Garden

“…In 2019, the range of motives was slightly changed and it was asked to describe the Garden as a place of "conservation", "research", "beauty of nature", and "benefits for humans". Out of 1165 people the majority -79.48 % -answered that they associate the Garden "with beauty", followed by "research" -13.48 %; 3.52 % of respondents voted for the "benefit" and "protection" (Kalugin et al, 2019 2633 survey was conducted among 77 parents who came with their children on an excursion. The majority of respondents -40 % -consider the botanical garden as "a place for education and relaxation", 21 % -only "as a place for education", none of the respondents considers the garden "as a place for entertainment".…”

An Assessment of Recreational Functions of Botanical Parks in Urban Ecosystems

“…Today the roles are including the activities such as recreational activities, social activities, economic activities, etc. Botanic gardens also play the roles as a part of the green lung of the city that gives freshness for the visitors in the metropolitan city (Mat Nazir et al 2014) With their rich collections and scienti c resources, botanical gardens have a unique potential that attracts the attention of society to the problems of preserving biodiversity, ensuring environmental education, conserving nature, providing leisure, and serving the place for relaxation and entertainment (Kalugin et al 2019). According to the de nition of Heywood, President of the Botanic Gardens Conservation International, botanical gardens are the organizations that grow the natural and cultural plants of the world in a certain order following the purposes of the garden, educate children, students, and the public by introducing the plants to them, and also conduct scienti c research on plants for different purposes (Heywood, 1987).…”