ALLOTMENT GARDEN: OPPORTUNITY FOR PEDAGOGIC EXPERIENCES IN URBAN LANDSCAPES

In the present, wider roles for allotment gardens related to social, cultural and ecological issues are being explored; their pedagogic value represents an outstanding resource to improve relationships with the natural environment and to cultivate community around a garden and outdoor learning centre. Different experiences of associations and schools show projects to sensitize children for natural cycles and gardening, to lay out garden plots for their education about healthy food, and to care for the land. Allotment gardens are welcome places to play, to learn from each other and, by working together, to build multicultural community integration. The focus of this contribution is analysis of educational aspects and influences over Italian historic evolutions, from pedagogic allotment gardens at the end of 19th century in Rome’s region, Montessori school gardens, and rural schools and to present experiences, such as Roma municipality school projects. By means of specific key readings and a comparative rough overview of similar contemporary experiences, the aim is to focalize how strategies of welfare policy and municipal local programs connect the fruition of these green spaces to the open space system and extend values and tastes in social spheres of the city. In this way school gardens can contribute to green wedges penetrating deeply into urban structures as well as to social enrichment of urban life.