Climate Garden 2085: An easily applicable transdisciplinary public art-science experiment for transformative learning about climate change

Abstract

Climate change education is inherently part of Education for Sustainable Development which has manifold aims to develop transformative learning from primary to tertiary pupils. Climate change is challenging as a school subject, as although it can improve pupils’ knowledge, it is less evident how such knowledge translates into decreasing the value-action gap. Climate change also transverses disciplinary boundaries and teachers struggle to incorporate it into the curriculum. We present a transdisciplinary art-science public experiment—the Climate Garden 2085, as a methodology which has proved a popular tool for schools to engage their pupils with climate change and sustainability. The Climate Garden 2085 is a participatory art-science work that engages school pupils as social groups, and in emotional ways with scientific questions related to the effects of climate change on plant species that are important for food production and gardening. Greenhouses simulating different climate change scenarios engage pupils in a tangible way with climate change effects on plants while accompanying plant science and art workshops allow them to carry out hands on experiments. The garden art-science intervention has so far been created 24 times, with more than 100 workshops, and reached around 40,000 people. It continues to attract major interest by teachers and schools. Based on qualitative observation and some quantitative data, we discuss possible reasons for the attractiveness of the methodology for schools and explore how it might affect awareness and behavioral changes of participants. We propose that the poetic nature of a garden and the length of engagement that the garden affords, combined with the embodied experience and time and place for discussions, has great potential for enabling reflection and action toward climate friendly and sustainable urban futures. We present the project here in order to encourage others to create their own Climate Garden.