Abstract:

Environmental issues such as clean energy, pollution, climate changes and sustainability are amongst the top priorities of development and policy agendas. In order to tackle many of the challenges in these domains, deep changes are required in the social behaviour regarding their relationship with nature and resources towards a sustainable development model.

Environmental education concerns the process of sharing knowledge and experiences with the purpose of raising awareness and leading individuals to a deep understanding of the environmental challenges and the impacts of their actions. It is also a process that aims to engage individuals in the analysis and search for answers to address such challenges, and more importantly, to take action. EE contributes to achieving a deeper understanding of critical environmental problems, but also to developing the required skills to make more informed and responsible decisions.

In this context, there is a wide range of practices of EE that allow for sharing the theory and knowledge associated to social-ecological systems, but also to engage communities. A remarkable example is the case of community gardens. Apart from the main purpose of the EE, it may encourage individuals to explore the natural spaces; improve citizenship, social and cultural expression, equal access; but also brings benefits on the physical and psychological health. Furthermore, it is a way for claiming and utilization of public space.

Among the variety of initiatives that are being developed, the Erasmus+ project “Co-education in Green” sets up to promote environmental community education through project-based learning dedicated to adult educators. Under the scope of the project, it is expected to develop cooperative projects to change shared spaces into greener and more accessible areas. In this context, through a pedagogical approach to nonformal community learning, the project aims to promote values of non-discrimination, active citizenship, integration related to diversity and protection of the natural environment. The project is started with a conceptual background on the co-creation of green shared areas developed, which each partner prepared a database of legislation, guidance on the national environmental protection and preservation system, accessible environment information, list of organisations that may provide some advice regarding these spaces, and a collection of local examples of green shared areas. In the end, as outputs, it is expected the development of a ‘Methodology of the creation of shared green shared spaces and implementation procedures’, an ‘Online Training Kit’ for improving educator’s competencies on environmental-oriented cooperative education.

Within this framework, and despite of its unique nature, a mandatory measure from the environmental licensing, the project Hort Canaã, at the Agricultural Pole of Vila Residencial Nova Canaã, in the city of São Luís in Brazil is a successful example of the use of the urban area to a common garden. Therefore, this article discusses the strategy of community gardens as a tool for EE to encourage community participation and improve their relationship with the environment. Moreover, it will present the case of the Hort Canaã project, namely its background and main results, in order to show that shared gardens may be a feasible solution to the urban areas as well as to highlight their importance as a tool for the teaching of environmental education.

Keywords:

Environmental education, community gardens, environmental challenges, competencies.