Pre-service Teacher Training in Environmental Education
Associate professor Veronica Gaylie shovels compost with a student teacher in the Learning Garden at the University of British Columbia.
Hope trumping
teachers, and practicing teachers, in understanding the conse-
quences of human impact on the environment. The Learning
Garden also exposed new teachers to a concept of the land as both
despair
a physical space and an experiential learning process, concepts
involving responsible land management, risk taking and commu-
nity commitment.
Teaching teachers in a
In conceptualizing our physical labour and learning in the
garden, I considered questions about the relationship between
learning garden
environmental philosophy and practice, namely:
• How does eco-centred teacher education promote ecological ideals
while transforming the teacher training process?
by Veronica Gaylie
• How can a campus garden engage student teachers in environmen-
University of British Columbia
tal philosophy while promoting new metaphors for eco-centred practice?
There are no larger fields than these, no worthier games than
A community learning model, with garden work at the core,
may here be played. Grow wild according to thy nature...let the
promoted local and global knowledge of drought, food systems
thunder rumble...take shelter under the cloud...Enjoy the land,
and farming practices; the model inspired students to want to
but own it not.
acquire such knowledge and experience in the first place. The
(Henry David Thoreau 1854, p.141)
garden shifted learner awareness from personal achievement to

the environment itself: from student stewardship of the garden
to the impact of that stewardship beyond the garden and into the
n 2006, I worked wtih a group of Environmental Education
I
world. The garden challenged assumptions of ‘teacher success’
graduate students to build a campus “Learning Garden,” a and also some of the ideals of environmental education. It was
model school garden and learning site for student teachers. especially the challenges that helped realign ideals and exposed
The garden, located at the University of British Columbia students to the unpredictable processes of both teaching and the
Okanagan, was intended as a site that would provide a context for natural world.
‘hands-on’ learning about urgent local environmental issues. The critical challenges of teaching teachers in the garden can
In such a context, there is an obvious need to involve student be described through two metaphors: garden as (physical) envi-
Page 26 http://www.clearingmagazine.org Clearing - 2009 Compendium Edition
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