HORTICULTURE

A growing number of educators have reflected and often sought to fulfill the important role of developing children's commitment to caring for the school environment: caring for the external and internal space of the classroom or school, caring for human relationships that reflect respect and affection with oneself same, with the other and with the world. Reflecting on the environment around us and rethinking the responsibilities and attitudes of each one of us generate rich, contextualized educational processes that are significant for each of the groups involved. In this context, the cultivation of school gardens can be a valuable educational tool. The contact with the earth in the preparation of flowerbeds and the discovery of countless forms of life that exist and coexist there, the enchantment with the seeds that sprout like magic, the daily practice of care – watering, transplanting, removing weeds, scaring away ants is a exercise of patience and perseverance until nature toasts us with the transformation of small seeds into lush and colorful vegetables. School gardens are instruments that, depending on the direction given by the educator, can address different curricular contents in a meaningful and contextualized way and promote experiences that rescue values. Values so well translated in the book Boniteza de um Sonho, by professor Moacir Gadotti: “A small garden, a vegetable garden, a piece of land, is a microcosm of the entire natural world. In it we find life forms, life resources, life processes. From it we can reconceptualize our school curriculum. By building and cultivating it, we can learn many things. Children see it as the source of so many mysteries! He teaches us the values of emotionality with the Earth: life, death, survival, the values of patience, perseverance, creativity, adaptation, transformation, renewal”.