JAM has developed an innovative solution within the international ELENA project, through which we create an opportunity for schools to operate the school garden as a business, so that students not only learn the basics of production and gardening, but also experience entrepreneurship. In cooperation with JAM and the Foundation for School Gardens, we provide participants with the professional knowledge necessary to consider the possibilities of school garden products, and we prepare teachers and educators in the form of training to start and mentor student businesses.
The school garden is one of the most obvious training grounds for environmental education, as a tool serving a wide range of goals. One such goal is to master the basics of gardening and food production, operating with an ecological approach, which develops the need, skills and abilities in schoolchildren for access to healthy food of the right quantity and quality, and to make a living from farming.
It not only helps to introduce nature, but also serves to develop responsible, caring behavior. At the same time, it is a possible means of developing creativity, a symbolically created micro-world: therefore, we can find as many types of school gardens as there are contributors. It is remarkable that schoolchildren grow crops: this ancient, fundamental human activity initiates them into the order of the world, educates them to be active, problem-solving and work, and develops cooperation and community.
Through the wide range of activities carried out in the school garden, beyond the tasks, the garden also appears as a medium that provides experience, relaxation, discovery, and joy, and can provide direction in career choices.
In the school garden, we get to know the plants around us, we can grow our own lettuce, tomatoes, popcorn, spices, herbs, and flowers for decoration. We can then eat them, dry them, and process them. We can multiply them, arrange them in bouquets, and press them, and create them however we like. Our productive power and creative imagination can produce products that we can then sell and exchange for money. This way, the picture becomes complete: we experience the full range of the relationship between our garden and our needs.
So far, it has been difficult to find a way to officially sell products in the school garden. The school garden, as a student enterprise, provides an excellent solution for this, offering teachers a complex educational program in which, in addition to the basic objectives of the school garden, students can also develop their entrepreneurial competencies and economic knowledge by integrating the sales side.
The school garden, as a student enterprise program, on the one hand supports environmental education, the formation of an ecological attitude, the emphasis on healthy nutrition, and on the other hand, it lays the foundation for the development of an entrepreneurial attitude, the development of students’ self-awareness and their placement in their micro and macro environment.
Its successful operation presupposes a pedagogical approach and work that focuses on the development of the students’ entire personality, and considers it natural that the stage of the teaching-learning process is not only the school. The program views students as partners.
Students generally have the opportunity to practice the role of a consumer, they buy products and use services. The Student Enterprise Program gives students the opportunity to try out the role of a worker (producer, processor and service provider), thus beginning their preparation for employment. Students working in a student enterprise practice running a business in real conditions.
They have to make the decisions related to this and also have to accept the consequences. While the students are moving from the idea that is the basis for success to the sale, they carry out a variety of activities, in which they use the knowledge and experience they have acquired in different subjects and from other sources; and they acquire new ones, which usually affect several subjects. This complex task plays an integrating role between the subjects. The condition for success is cooperation within the group, in which the individual plays an important role.
The school garden, as a student enterprise, works with major economic concepts that are understandable to 6-14 year olds. The students gradually become familiar with business and economic concepts and practical knowledge.
– assistance provided by experts in the development and operation of the school garden
– sharing of methodological ideas, workshops, and good practices
– membership in the network of school gardens and student entrepreneurs
– professional assistance in the operation of businesses
– opportunity to participate in the student business fair
– professional and methodological materials
– program responsible teacher at the applicant institution
– participation in professional training programs
– contact and communication with the program coordinators
NAT 2020 specifically highlights the development of students’ “Employee, innovation and entrepreneurial competencies”. Running a student enterprise fully meets this expectation.
In the case of the SzínesKert Student Enterprise, the students developed in the following:
They formulated a goal, for example, describing the main activity of the company: Plant cultivation using ecological methods. Processing and selling plants grown in this way. Teaching and popularizing handicraft activities. What goods should we prepare for the Advent Courtyard, Duna Plaza.
The goal of our student enterprise is to process the painter and other plants grown in the garden into household, craft, and art products. https://nesz.hu/tojasdiszitok-2020-04/
We also took steps towards the service – teaching embroidered egg painting and felting. We involved the senior grades of our school in visual culture classes, as well as students in the graphics department, in the development of the markerting and the development of the SzínesKert brand. Many, many good ideas were born in the field of logos and inscriptions. No final decision was made on their use, the process was interrupted by the pandemic.