About Project

[Communities Collaborating for Ecological Thriving]

Our project co-designs school gardens with communities. We focus on co-creating practices that integrate Indigenous Local and Ecological Knowledges (ILEK) with climate science.

image of a green pepper growing, bright green with straw beneath it

Our goals with this approach are to: 

  1. Create school gardens to positively impact children’s wellbeing including in relation to climate literacies and land relations;  

  2. Implement sustainable, climate-smart school gardening practices that are culturally responsive and integrate ILEK with climate science;  

  3. Co-design equitable, culturally situated, intergenerational, and interdisciplinary climate literacies grounded in sustainable small-scale agricultural practices; and  

  4. Co-design a scalable model for school gardens as a trans-sectoral, community-based climate anticipatory response in South Africa. 

green leaves in dappled sunlight
tree with many branches extending to the sky in south africa schoolyard

Intergenerational Climate Literacy:  

The research team’s collective expertise in education includes garden-based and culturally responsive science learning, land education, early childhood and primary education, teacher education, and climate change education. This team works with teachers, families and community elders to co-design children’s curriculum inquiries emerging from land-based education in the gardens.