Growing With Nature: School Cotton Field for Nature-Based Learning

Abstract

"School Cotton Field" is a participatory landscape design project jointly initiated by China Agricultural University, Primary School Division of Tsinghua University High School Yongfeng, Primary School Affiliated to China Agricultural University, and other schools. To meet the call for labor education in schools at all levels, as well as the national guidance on strengthening farming-reading education in agricultural colleges, this project proposes to plant cotton, rather than common landscape vegetation underutilized green spaces on campus to create a site for farmingreading education, involving teachers, students, and their parents. The School Cotton Field provides opportunities for activities such as farming and cotton artworks making, establishing an innovative model of farmingreading education based on the Chinese calendar. The project allows students to get inspired for innovation and exploration by farming, and to learn the deep connections between human and nature, as well as the value of living creatures on the land in daily life. It also takes full advantage of the campus landscape to enhance its role in providing labor education, thus to revive the traditional Chinese farming-reading culture on modern campus.