Project for schools renaturalization
Basic information
Project Title
Project for schools renaturalization
Full project title
Project for the renaturalization of educational spaces La Cistérniga high school (Valladolid)
Category
Reconnecting with nature
Project Description
This project has two sides, the first is the transformation of the environment with the creation of a small botanical garden where students can closely observe the development of local plant species, the placement of a mobile garden area in flowerbeds, to develop the students' responsibility to growing their own plants and the plantation of a woodland with tables for outdoor activities. The second part involves awareness-raising activities like crafting insect hotels, nest boxes, recycling bins.
Geographical Scope
Local
Project Region
La Cistérniga (Valladolid, Spain), Spain
Urban or rural issues
It addresses urban-rural linkages
Physical or other transformations
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
EU Programme or fund
No
Description of the project
Summary
The project is my final degree project in Forestry and Natural Environment Engineering at the HIGHER TECHNICAL SCHOOL OF AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING of Palencia. Titled “Project for the renaturalization of educational spaces: IESO La Cistérniga” La Cistérniga (Valladolid).The actions proposed are intended to naturalize the educational center's facilities to allow their use and be useful, at an educational and ecological level, in addition to facilitating their integration more effectively in the daily activities of the center.The target groups of the project: students of the educational center, teachers and other staff, all members of the locality as beneficiaries of the actions carried out there, society in general as it represents an environmental improvement initiative. Within the specific objectives, two main blocks can be distinguished, on the one hand, those related to the improvement of the physical environment and on the other hand, those related to the integration of the environment in the center's teaching.To improve the environment, there are objectives such as soil improvement, the implementation of a stable and appropriate plant cover for the area or the restoration of the grass, managing to mitigate the effects of erosion in the most inclined areas, reducing surface runoff and favoring soil retention and infiltration. Prioritizing the use of native species. fight against climate change, creating green spaces as a carbon sink, fixing part of this element in the soil, where plants use it and its concentration in the atmosphere is reduced, helping to alleviate the effects of this phenomenon. As a result, the integration of outdoor spaces in different subjects is sought, generating an improvement in the educational environment. The quality of learning improves with the approach to the natural environment and coexistence with it. It allows students to raise awareness about the importance of theenvironment, protection, focused on sustainability and resilience.
Key objectives for sustainability
The main aim to create the project is to use and include the environment y educational activities and students’ leisure time, as well as improving the outdoor spaces of the school, maximizing their use, and raising awareness of the importance of the environment surrounding their daily lives and the future. Always focusing on environmental education and sustainability using their surroundings as a tool for learning, seeing nature as an essential piece of their lives, not a foreigner but an ally which needs protection and improvement. Buffering climate change by creating green spaces. Protecting animal and plant biodiversity and raising awareness of its importance. Reducing the human impact to a minimum. Prioritizing reusable and sustainable materials. Avoiding the use of foreign species in plantations.Other important factors that increase the value of this project are the inclusion of the building reducing visual impact. Planting new vegetation contributes to creating a carbon sink that reduces the effect of greenhouse gas emissions. Mitigating the climate change effects in a local scale. Improvement of small animal biodiversity in the area by creating more niches for arthropods, mice, small birds and pollinators. Improvement of air quality introducing more vegetation that captures CO2. This natural barrier helps to reduces the virulence of the climate, causing the temperatures to be less intense during the hardest seasons that in this area are winter and summer. Reducing superficial water runoff and its erosion thanks to that new vegetation. Letting the students learn about the local species in a direct way by observing the area inside the school and out. Encouragement of recycling with the installation of waste separation bins.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
Conditioning of areas prioritizing educational use, relating it to environmental education. The purpose of the modifications made must be able to be integrated into one of the subjects taught by the center's teachers or involve an improvement in the conservation of the environment. The completion of the works should not hinder the course of teaching. Spaces must be adapted for all types of users, prioritizing the elimination of barriers. Any species that may pose a danger to students will be excluded from transit areas.
Key objectives for inclusion
The project is framed in the Spanish educational legislation, specifically in Organic Law 3/2020, of 29 December, which modifies Organic Law 2/2006, of 3 May, on Education. DECREE 39/2022, of 29 September, which establishes the organisation and curriculum of compulsory secondary education in the Community of Castile and Leon. As well as in the key competences for learning, based on the European Framework of Reference established in the annex of the Recommendation of the Council of the European Union of 22 May 2018.
In accordance with the law, the aim is for educational centres to serve as a "place of custody and care for our environment", the purpose of the project is to make this possible. On the other hand, their educational use must comply with accessibility criteria that allow them to be used inclusively, facilitating the safe mobility of students and providing spaces that allow inclusive learning situations in which all the senses can be used: touching, hearing, smelling, feeling....
The starting point is to highlight the need to take advantage of all those urban spaces that can be improved by favouring the quality of life of citizens, 2º the importance of the actions to be carried out being carried out by professionals who are capable of designing coherent, practical and economically profitable actions, calling in this case for the presence of the forestry engineer in their planning and design.
The area destined for the different actions is laid out in several areas close to each other within the centre, which will be the different stands on which work will be carried out. Taking into account the geomorphological characteristics of the plots and their current state.
In accordance with the law, the aim is for educational centres to serve as a "place of custody and care for our environment", the purpose of the project is to make this possible. On the other hand, their educational use must comply with accessibility criteria that allow them to be used inclusively, facilitating the safe mobility of students and providing spaces that allow inclusive learning situations in which all the senses can be used: touching, hearing, smelling, feeling....
The starting point is to highlight the need to take advantage of all those urban spaces that can be improved by favouring the quality of life of citizens, 2º the importance of the actions to be carried out being carried out by professionals who are capable of designing coherent, practical and economically profitable actions, calling in this case for the presence of the forestry engineer in their planning and design.
The area destined for the different actions is laid out in several areas close to each other within the centre, which will be the different stands on which work will be carried out. Taking into account the geomorphological characteristics of the plots and their current state.
How Citizens benefit
The students of the educational centre (450), teachers (47) and other staff (7), all the members of the local community (10,000) as beneficiaries of the actions carried out in the centre, and society in general are directly affected and therefore benefit if it is developed, as it is an initiative to improve the environment.
Having properly conditioned outdoor spaces allows the practicality of the classes, such as seeing the development of the plants in real time or the cultivation of different specimens in flowerbeds, where the students choose the conditions in which the plants grow, being in charge of their proliferation. With the implantation of certain species, it will be possible to learn about industries typical of the area, such as the use of pine nuts, pine cones and resin, thus learning a little more about the rural heritage of the community. All newly created spaces with green elements will serve for the creation of new, more practical learning situations in direct contact with the environment, the situation of ecosystems and their functioning.
Learning situations can be created in the facilities that have been designed for all subjects. The main competence that affects this project is the STEM "Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics", the STEM5 , specifically the green spaces improve and facilitate the teaching activity as well as improving the health of those who invest their time in these areas. With respect to the Citizenship Competence (CC), it refers to interactions with the environment and these spaces are a clear example of how the integration of the natural environment into daily life can be carried out, as well as allowing students to become aware of sustainability and the improvement of their own environment, together with the importance it has. to consolidate "concepts and procedures to understand and explain how the environment works, being an active part of it" and contributing to the development of students' scientific thinking.
Having properly conditioned outdoor spaces allows the practicality of the classes, such as seeing the development of the plants in real time or the cultivation of different specimens in flowerbeds, where the students choose the conditions in which the plants grow, being in charge of their proliferation. With the implantation of certain species, it will be possible to learn about industries typical of the area, such as the use of pine nuts, pine cones and resin, thus learning a little more about the rural heritage of the community. All newly created spaces with green elements will serve for the creation of new, more practical learning situations in direct contact with the environment, the situation of ecosystems and their functioning.
Learning situations can be created in the facilities that have been designed for all subjects. The main competence that affects this project is the STEM "Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics", the STEM5 , specifically the green spaces improve and facilitate the teaching activity as well as improving the health of those who invest their time in these areas. With respect to the Citizenship Competence (CC), it refers to interactions with the environment and these spaces are a clear example of how the integration of the natural environment into daily life can be carried out, as well as allowing students to become aware of sustainability and the improvement of their own environment, together with the importance it has. to consolidate "concepts and procedures to understand and explain how the environment works, being an active part of it" and contributing to the development of students' scientific thinking.
Physical or other transformations
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
Innovative character
The taking into consideration of educational spaces as places in which to develop renaturalization actions is recent. The few existing initiatives in our country come from educational fields. The most innovative thing about my project is the realization of a renaturalization project from the perspective of a technical forestry engineer, giving a technical dimension to the design of the spaces, the use of species appropriate to the climatology and pedology, and integrating into it the curricular use that is typical of an educational center, with criteria of inclusion, sustainability, effectiveness, resilience and conservation of the environment. These spaces, where the educational activity of children, adolescents, young people and even adults takes place, can be used both to raise awareness regarding the importance of generating and maintaining new green spaces and to increase the quality of life and the benefits to the environment.Educational centers are places where we spend a high percentage of our childhood and adolescence time: between 6 and 8 hours a day from ages 3 to 16, and these facilities are frequently found in urban spaces in cities, in that traditionally the maintenance of green infrastructures that seek, among other benefits, the improvement of the quality of the air breathed and its impact on the development of the subject, favor the acquisition of values of conservation and maintenance of natural spaces, the use of green spaces as educational resources and not only as places of contemplation This is the starting point of this project, to highlight, firstly, the need to take advantage of all those urban spaces that are susceptible to improvement, favoring the quality of life of the citizen, secondly, the importance of the actions carried out being carried out by professionals who are capable of designing coherent, practical and economically profitable actions, demanding in this case the presence of the Forest Engineer in their planning and design.
Disciplines/knowledge reflected
Integration between the educational field and the framework of forestry engineering giving a technical perspective of the graduate in forestry engineering and the natural environment with a specific educational application, with primary beneficiaries of the entire educational community.
As mentioned in previous sections, the way of working is the creation of learning situations where students can acquire new knowledge and strengthen others.
Nest box. They are artificial structures, usually made of wood, whose function is to provide a nesting place for birds or bats. It is a way to encourage the establishment of colonies of various species on urban land.
The specific learning situation that arises is the manufacture of these with planks and their subsequent placement in the established areas. Once installed in the environment, another series of activities can be carried out such as monitoring future colonies, bird watching, among others.
Insect hotel. It is an artificial shelter to facilitate the hibernation of insects and arachnids, made with natural materials that simulate possible real habitats.
As with the nest boxes, their construction is proposed with wooden slats for the structure, which will be filled, creating cavities, with different materials to simulate natural environments, such as pine cones, wood and branches of different sizes or with holes, bricks. or any other material.
Recycling bins. is the construction of wooden bins to encourage recycling among students
Urban garden
The creation of an urban garden is proposed from the flower beds that will be placed in the patio. This way students will be able to grow their own plants.
As mentioned in previous sections, the way of working is the creation of learning situations where students can acquire new knowledge and strengthen others.
Nest box. They are artificial structures, usually made of wood, whose function is to provide a nesting place for birds or bats. It is a way to encourage the establishment of colonies of various species on urban land.
The specific learning situation that arises is the manufacture of these with planks and their subsequent placement in the established areas. Once installed in the environment, another series of activities can be carried out such as monitoring future colonies, bird watching, among others.
Insect hotel. It is an artificial shelter to facilitate the hibernation of insects and arachnids, made with natural materials that simulate possible real habitats.
As with the nest boxes, their construction is proposed with wooden slats for the structure, which will be filled, creating cavities, with different materials to simulate natural environments, such as pine cones, wood and branches of different sizes or with holes, bricks. or any other material.
Recycling bins. is the construction of wooden bins to encourage recycling among students
Urban garden
The creation of an urban garden is proposed from the flower beds that will be placed in the patio. This way students will be able to grow their own plants.
Methodology used
Prior to the project, an analysis of the center's needs appropriate to its objectives is carried out, framed in pedagogical and environmental usefulness. It begins with the studies of the relevant climatological and pedological variables, which determine the selection of the species, carrying out a study of alternatives to choose the most appropriate ones. The analysis of all the technical aspects necessary to carry out the work continues, including the needs of machinery, labor, species and costs.
The total budget for contractual execution is estimated at €26,674.71, for which it would be necessary to seek financing in a European, state or regional program to make it a reality.
The total budget for contractual execution is estimated at €26,674.71, for which it would be necessary to seek financing in a European, state or regional program to make it a reality.
How stakeholders are engaged
Prior to the design of the project, the teaching staff was consulted by means of a questionnaire of forms, based on their answers, the zoning according to which each of the spaces could be used in the following way was carried out:
Zone 1: Botanical garden and open-air gymnasium. It will allow real-time observation of plant succession and the changes that vegetation undergoes throughout the year, as well as being able to observe the different types of vegetation (tree, shrub and herbaceous), the parts of a plant, plant reproduction and the types of tissues they present. possibility of exercising outdoors with the exercise modules that will be placed in the central part
Zone 2: Forest with tables. shaded area for the warmer months, protecting students from solar radiation, along with the possibility of teaching classes outdoors thanks to the installation of tables with benches.
Zone 3: Vegetable garden and potting shed. It will provide the patio with green elements to complement and enrich the concrete. The raised beds in the different locations provide garden or urban cultivation areas where students can have their own plants, care for them, analyze their development and see how different ecological and climatic factors affect their growth, light, nutrients, temperature, photoperiod.
Zone 4: Erosion restoration. The actions proposed have the main purpose of improving the soil condition of the area, its accessibility and making the space more attractive by integrating it into the environment.
Zone 5: Aromatic garden. In addition to direct contact with the natural environment, it will also be possible to observe different insects due to the plant specimens found.
Zone 6: Restoration of grass pavement
The actions will be aimed at improving pedestrian traffic, preventing falls and making the facilities more accessible.
Zone 1: Botanical garden and open-air gymnasium. It will allow real-time observation of plant succession and the changes that vegetation undergoes throughout the year, as well as being able to observe the different types of vegetation (tree, shrub and herbaceous), the parts of a plant, plant reproduction and the types of tissues they present. possibility of exercising outdoors with the exercise modules that will be placed in the central part
Zone 2: Forest with tables. shaded area for the warmer months, protecting students from solar radiation, along with the possibility of teaching classes outdoors thanks to the installation of tables with benches.
Zone 3: Vegetable garden and potting shed. It will provide the patio with green elements to complement and enrich the concrete. The raised beds in the different locations provide garden or urban cultivation areas where students can have their own plants, care for them, analyze their development and see how different ecological and climatic factors affect their growth, light, nutrients, temperature, photoperiod.
Zone 4: Erosion restoration. The actions proposed have the main purpose of improving the soil condition of the area, its accessibility and making the space more attractive by integrating it into the environment.
Zone 5: Aromatic garden. In addition to direct contact with the natural environment, it will also be possible to observe different insects due to the plant specimens found.
Zone 6: Restoration of grass pavement
The actions will be aimed at improving pedestrian traffic, preventing falls and making the facilities more accessible.
Global challenges
The interest of my project lies in the fact that it aims to be one of the responses that, together with others, will contribute to the resolution of a global challenge, such as environmental conservation, climate change and the environmental education of the citizens of the future, who, by educating them to live in harmony with nature, will be able to defend and maintain it.
If, centre by centre, we manage to ensure that they are included in their environment, are respectful of nature, contribute to reducing the carbon footprint, and educate citizens in these values, we will have contributed to improving the quality of life of new and future generations in our immediate surroundings.
If, centre by centre, we manage to ensure that they are included in their environment, are respectful of nature, contribute to reducing the carbon footprint, and educate citizens in these values, we will have contributed to improving the quality of life of new and future generations in our immediate surroundings.
Learning transferred to other parties
All aspects of the curriculum included in the project are absolutely replicable in any centre, not only in the autonomous community, but also in the European community, since the European framework of competences is taken as a reference.
The objectives of the project can be perfectly assimilated to any other educational centre in the European area.
The procedures and methodology used for the selection of species, machinery, etc. can be replicated in their entirety.
The specific adaptation to the environment can be used to exemplify any other application.
Regarding the detection of needs, the use of the forms is accessible to anyone.
Regarding the selection of species, it would be necessary to carry out a specific analysis if the climatic and edaphological zones are not similar to the one described in the project.
The objectives of the project can be perfectly assimilated to any other educational centre in the European area.
The procedures and methodology used for the selection of species, machinery, etc. can be replicated in their entirety.
The specific adaptation to the environment can be used to exemplify any other application.
Regarding the detection of needs, the use of the forms is accessible to anyone.
Regarding the selection of species, it would be necessary to carry out a specific analysis if the climatic and edaphological zones are not similar to the one described in the project.
Keywords
Naturalisation
sustainability
resilience
education
inclusion
