Place-Making by Design

Abstract

Josh’s trellis-building story comes from an outdoor lesson in a gardening/environmental education programme at The Patch Primary School in Victoria. Affectionately referred to by the children as ‘enviro’, the garden programme supports student learning through innovative inquiry and design oriented approaches that draw on interdisciplinary knowledge. As part of the ‘learning by doing’ model, students are encouraged to collect and apply knowledge in a range of gardening and environmental activities that occur predominantly in the school grounds. In the bamboo scenario students have been asked by their teacher to construct a trellis that will eventually support crops of summer vegetables such as climbing beans, snow peas and cucumbers that rely on physical structures to support their upward growth. Prior to its construction the teacher has shown the children how to join 1–2 metre long pieces of bamboo using the technique of ‘frapping’ where twine is lashed across, around and under two pieces of bamboo. Once pieces of the bamboo are joined together the children build upon it to create a freestanding garden structure.