Author Archives: Ina Horlings

Exploring the integration of school gardens – MSc-thesis by Blair van Pelt

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Dowtown Teaching farm in Idaho (photo the Downtown Teaching Farm

Downtown Teaching Farm in Boise, Idaho. Photo credit: The Downtown Teaching Farm.

School gardens are sprouting up everywhere these days, yet little is known about how they can be used as a teaching tool here in the Netherlands. School gardens are common in elementary schools, yet rare in secondary schools.

For her MSc-thesis Exploring how school gardens are integrated into secondary schools, Blair van Pelt has looked at 9 examples in the United States and the Netherlands where a garden or greenhouse is successfully being used as a teaching tool in secondary education. These examples were examined along practical, structural and ideological lines of questioning. What emerged from the cases is that school gardens can be used to teach, both theoretical knowledge and practical skills.

Inside the greenhouse at the Sage School, Hailey (Idaho)

Inside the greenhouse, Sage School in Hailey (Idaho)

Secondary school gardens facilitate learning in a community of practice and are a microcosm of civic ecology. In addition to being a fun way to teach science and other subjects, they give students an opportunity to participate in, and contribute to their communities in a result-oriented and hands-on manner that connects both local and global social and ecological issues.

Agriculture school garden in Apeldoorn (NL)

Agriculture school garden in Apeldoorn (NL)

Additionally, it emerged that the needs, goals, opportunities and challenges of a secondary school garden are different and evolve depending on which stage of development the school garden is in; from which, a new theory sprouted.

The MSc-thesis provides an in-depth look into the nine examples of successful school gardens in secondary education and provides recommendations that are meant to provide guidance and serve as an inspiration for aspiring schools and policy makers.

For more information contact Blair van Pelt: blair.vanpelt@gmail.com

TRANSPLACE research project – connecting people to place

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In 2014 the International Social Science Council launched a call for pre-proposals to apply for a ‘seed grant’ on the topic Transformations to Sustainability. Wageningen UR (Ina Horlings from RSO and Paul Hebinck from SDC), the Rhodes University and the University of Viçosa wrote a proposal together and received funding. The seed grant was used to build a knowledge network around this topic, locally in sites in the Eastern Cape in South Africa, the Minais Gerais in Brazil and in three different sites in the Netherlands. Furthermore the research partners met in South Africa in December 2014 to visit some sites and write a full proposal together. In the beginning of 2015 the organisation ILEIA, centre for learning on sustainable agriculture, joined the research consortium and in April 2015 a final proposal was submitted.

Meeting in South-Africapptx

TRANSPLACE addresses concrete problems and sustainability issues across several linked areas of global environmental change in 9 specific social-ecological settings in South-Africa, Brazil and the Netherlands. Sustainability problems emerge from complex interactions between people’s livelihoods, the persistent poverty in the southern countries, growing inequalities between people, social discontent and health.
The integrative sustainability challenge is to support sustainable place-shaping as an empowering force of transformation – encompassing people, practices and policies – contributing to new forms of connectivity and co-creation between people and place. This occurs via, and helps us to understand, re-localization, transformative agency and the re-embedding of daily lived practices in social-ecological systems and place-based assets. This is considered as an empowering perspective and an effective starting point for sustainable place-based development.The central question is: How does place-shaping – understood as processes of connectivity- lead to new seeds of change contributing to transformation to sustainability?

TRANSPLACE aims to:

  • address the temporal, historical, spatial, value-led and multi-scale aspects of sustainability in places and to connect people to place (landscape, nature, soil, people’s capacities) by identifying, supporting and replanting ‘seeds of change’ (innovative practices)
  • establish (long-term) knowledge networks on different scales, facilitate transnational research collaboration and social learning and support early career scientists.
  • co-create new knowledge, tools and policy-recommendations on processes of place-shaping as innovative transformative pathways to sustainability.

For more information, send a mail to: lummina.horlings@wur.nl

Values in place – open acces publication and thesis opportunity

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Students interested in doing a thesis on this topic can contact me:  lummina.horlings@wur.nl

Societal change toward sustainability is accelerated not only by political systems or practical actions, but also by values which influence our attitudes and actions. The latter point has been termed as change ‘from the inside-out’ or the ‘interior’ subjective dimension of sustainability. However, not clear is what values exactly are and how they play a role in places. Therefore I have drafted an article on this topic now published in Regional Studies, Regional Science (open access): Values in place; A value-oriented approach toward sustainable place-shaping.

The aim of this paper is to understand how specifically processes of sustainable place-shaping are influenced by human values, rooted in culture. The argument is that practices of place-shaping can contribute to sustainable development of communities and regions using local resources, people’s capacities and the distinctiveness of places. The development and engagement of participant’s values in places can build co-creative capacity, contributing to change. The challenge of incorporating ‘values in place’ is to create a dialogue between actors, not based on personal interests, but on common agreed-upon motivational and symbolic values, directed to the common good.
The concept of value is often discussed in the context of economic value, expressed in monetary terms. However, values also reflect people’s core principles and motivations rooted in broader cultural value systems and worldviews. Furthermore they reflect how people value and appreciate their place, and subscribe symbolic meanings to places. Values hinder or foster the fulfilling of what people consider as worthwhile. In the paper different value-oriented approaches in the context of sustainable place-shaping are explored, an economic, intentional and symbolic dimension. Values are not self-standing concepts which can be mapped or analysed as atomized issues, but they are intertwined, context-determined, culturally varied and connected to how we see our self and how we perceive our environment and place. Values such as freedom, solidarity and justice only gain meaning in actual people and practices and can be considered as dynamic in space, place and time. A value-oriented approach can provide a more in-depth insight into what people appreciate, feel responsible for and are willing to commit to in the context of their place.
For more information see the abstract and full article: L.G. Horlings (2015) Values in place; A value-oriented approach toward sustainable place-shaping. Regional Studies, Regional Science, Volume 2, Issue 1, pages 256-273, open access, DOI:10.1080/21681376.2015.1016097.

Sign in now for the course A global Sense of Place!

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vechtdal 1

A Global Sense of Place (RSO-55306) is an optional interdisciplinary course on sustainable place-based development for students from various master programmes (e.g. MDR, MES, MID, MLP, MUE, MOA, MFN). The course builds on the BSc course RSO-56806 Sociology and Anthropology of Place-shaping providing an introduction to place-based approaches in development. Knowledge of this introductory course is an advantage, but is not assumed.

The course aims to make students acquainted with an interdisciplinary and place-based approach to development. A relational place-based approach is seen as key to the understanding of interrelated rural and urban transformation processes and ergo sustainable development.

By means of this course students will achieve profound understanding in key-concepts and methods on place-based sustainable development. Work from key thinkers in sustainable place-making will be critically discussed and examined on the basis of various cases. Guest speakers are invited to reflect on place-based approaches to sustainable development and illustrate these through case studies. Ultimately students will acquire a place-based perspective on development.

Different interdisciplinary themes will be addressed such as:
• a relational approach of place and space;
• key thinkers on place and space and politics of place;
• community development
• cultural approaches of place-based development
• ‘the human dimension’, encompassing collaboration and leadership
• ‘defence’ of places and conflicts

If you are interested or want to register for this course, please send a mail before October 4th to lummina.horlings@wur.nl

Workshop Succesvol creëren

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1 daagse workshop op vrijdag 26 september.
succesvol creeren

 Hoe kun je makkelijker creëren?
 Voor werk, studie en privé.
 Simpele methode, veel effect

Deze dag is interessant voor mensen die iets in hun leven willen veranderen, in huis, tuin of keuken, op het werk of in relaties. Je krijgt nieuwe energie en flow om je plan verder te brengen! Je werkt individueel of in duo’s.

Waar: Haagsteeg 4, Wageningen
Tijd: van 9.30 tot 16.30 uur, max. 12 deelnemers
Investering: € 96 ( excl Btw) studenten en minima € 48 (excl Btw)

Wanneer je deze datum niet kunt, er worden meer workshops georganiseerd. Meer info of aanmelden: jifke.sol@xs4all.nl of paarsengeel@gmail.com

succesvolcreeren.nl