抄録
Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn emphasized in her book “Suan Prueksasart Rong Rian”(School Botanical Garden) that “In order to educate and train children to be aware of plant conservations, the children should be taught and trained to appreciate the aesthetic values, the interesting aspects and the happiness of plants by studying and conserving the plants. Conventional routine teaching and training procedure whose emphasis is on the shoulds and should-nots and the negative impact will put the children under stress, which will not benefit the country in the long run”.
The school board of the academic year 1995 founded the botanical garden at Kasetsart University Laboratory School (KUS) to raise children's awareness of the importance of the plants. Students have the opportunity to observe a variety of plants to create awareness of plant conservation in students' hearts. Moreover, the KUS botanical garden can be an outdoor lab for many classes.
Each year, the botanical garden committee, appointed by the school board, assigns seven different species of trees to be planted in the school. The students from Grade 1 to Grade 11 are engaged in such activities as observation, research, experimentation, data and sample collection, interviewing, drawing, data processing, result evaluation and a conclusion about their findings. At the end of each project, the assigned groups of students must submit a report and present their work in front of their classmates. The students in Grade 9 conduct a school exhibition of the 7 projects.
Feedback obtained from the questionnaires conducted to the students from Grade 1 to Grade 12 on the KUS botanical garden has been positive. The students found the working together part of the experience beneficial. The other benefits and skills gained are adaptation to working in a team, systematic way of working, planning, data researching, responsibility, self discipline, knowledge about nature, importance of plants and the necessities of conserving plant species for sustainable society.
