IMPLEMENTATION OF EDUCATIONAL GARDENS IN MUNICIPAL SCHOOLS IN SÃO PAULO

Abstract

Educational school garden projects have been recognized as a strategy for health promotion and effective education that enable significant learning on topics such as food systems, healthy eating, ecology and regional culture. In the city of São Paulo, the use of educational school gardens is embedded in the "Plan for the Progressive Introduction of Organic or Agro-ecological Based Foods in the School Feeding Program (PAE) of the Municipality of São Paulo" as an instrument to be implemented, which establishes the undertaking of courses on school gardens for public schools. This study aimed to monitor and describe the process of implementation of educational gardens in the public schools of São Paulo city where the course "Educational Gardens - More Organic Schools” was taken in 2016. Data were collected through two electronic questionnaires sent to the schools and to the participants of the course. A higher frequency of active gardens was found in relation to the rest of the schools in the city and, in these places, the garden usually had a pedagogical use as well. Lack of inputs, of adequate space, of involvement of the school staff and of time in the working day were described as the main challenges for the implementation and maintenance of educational gardens. For the success of the project, the involvement of the whole school community, the introduction of the garden theme in the curricular discussions and the undertaking of courses in the schools have shown to be of great importance. DOI: 10.12957/demetra.2018.34062

Keywords

• hortas escolares. alimentação escolar. educação sustentável. são paulo.