„Deutsche Welle TV“ and the Garden of the Future

Our 8th grade and their class teacher are taking part in the ecologically valuable, forward-looking and modern project “IPGarten”. This is so exciting that a team from „Deutsche Welle TV“ even came to visit us at school and filmed a report about it. Have a look!

http://p.dw.com/p/2iTn2

Access to a vegetable garden is only possible for a small number of people in Germany, Europe and the majority of the industrialised world today. This is especially true for those who live in urban areas, and is certainly not a possibility for our students during their school day. This constant estrangement from vegetable gardens is closely linked to the loss of knowledge about the origin and mode of production of foods, both in children and in adults. As consumers, we no longer know how soil is prepared, how to sow, plant, cultivate or harvest. Increasingly, however, there is a longing to get back to real gardens. In digitally controlled and “analog” managed gardens, all people have the possibility to produce their own food. As an educational institution with a focus on natural sciences, this project was of particular interest to us and our students. The „IPGardeners“ of our 8th grade will now have the possibility to produce their own food through the Internet. Online, they make a plan and prepare for planting, they fertilize and irrigate, they observe the growth and order horticultural services. The „IPGardeners“ discover and learn about gardening and share their knowledge with their classmates.

We want to help make the world a little bit better, because of things like this:

• transparence
• ecologically
• disability access
• economical
• long term
• socially
• regionally.

Of course, it is of equal importance to us, that our school students do not lose direct contact with nature. With our younger children, we harvest vegetables from our vegetable patch in the schoolyard and our Work & Travel program also places great emphasis on agriculture, ecology, sustainability and connection to nature.
We would like to thank Dr. Dennhardt, the class teacher of the 8th grade, for his dedication to this exciting project and above all, for the great idea to take his school class on board with him.