In the course "CampusAckerdemie" offered for the first time in the summer semester of 2022, students from both universities at the Weihenstephan campus were able to learn together how the approach of education for sustainable development [ESD] can be implemented in the context of a garden for learning and teaching. From the practical acquisition of skills in ecological gardening to getting to know didactic methods for critical nutrition education. The practical seminar was coordinated by the TUM Professorship of Urban Productive Ecosystems, Prof. Monika Egerer, and implemented in collaboration with the newly established TUM Green Office Weihenstephan, the HSWT Faculty of Horticulture and Food Technology (Prof. Dr. Thomas Hannus), as well as through the hands-on initiative of students at the campus garden "Knosporus". There, students and employees of the Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Sciences and the Technical University of Munich work together to garden and design.
In the open field and in the foil tunnel, mainly vegetables are grown in the most ecological and sustainable way possible, and the community garden sees itself as an open meeting space and a living laboratory for the growth of vegetables as well as for ideas. A suitable place, therefore, for a practical seminar that aims to enable students of different study contexts from the fields of land use to food management to understand themselves on their professional paths in cooperation with various actors in a role as effective multipliers for sustainable development.
A pilot project "with heart and spade"
CampusAckerdemie is a pilot project of the young social enterprise "Acker e.V." in which 11 universities across Germany participated this summer. Acker e.V. aims to increase the appreciation for food in society and to counteract the loss of knowledge and competence in the area of food production, unhealthy nutrition and food waste. The CampusAckerdemie pilot project aims to integrate the topic of education for sustainable development (ESD) into the training of future teachers and educators - in the case of the Weihenstephan students: future professionals and researchers from the fields of land use to food management.
While cultivating, caring for and utilizing various vegetables in the campus garden, the participants in CampusAckerdemie acquire basic horticultural and pedagogical skills to be able to independently create a garden as multipliers and use it for educational purposes.
In addition to practical impulses on the approach of "Inquiry-based Learning" by the responsible professor Monika Egerer, the seminar was led by the AckerCoach and graduate geographer Ruth Mahla, who focuses her own work in adult education around the soil as a living ecosystem and is active, among other things, at the Munich "StadtAcker" - an initiative of the Ackermannbogen e.V.". The thematic focus of the seminar included the basics of organic horticulture, soil fertility and management, pest and pollinator management, and methods of education for sustainable development.
The practical lessons in the teaching and learning garden were based on experiential learning, with a practical and theoretical exploration of a community garden in its capacity as a multifunctional green space and socio-ecological system to be experienced. The visit of a 5th grade class at a secondary school in Garching, which participates with its dedicated teacher in the ESD school program "GemüseAckerdemie", which has been in existence for some time, formed the content-related conclusion of the seminar. By gardening together with the children, the students were able to experience in practice how ESD can be implemented at a school in an educational garden - so that the coming generation can once again "know what they are eating" and develop knowledge and appreciation for our environment.
Editing:
Technical University Munich
Corporate Communications Center
presse(at)tum.de
Teamwebsite
Scientific contact:
Prof. Dr. Monika Egerer
TUM School of Life Sciences
Professorship of Urban Productive Ecosystems
Tel. +49 8161 71 4756
monika.egerer(at)tum.de
Scientific contact:
Stefanie Burger
TUM School of Life Sciences
Professorship of Urban Productive Ecosystems
stefanie.burger(at)tum.de