2021 Volume 31 Issue 1 Pages 1_52-63
The purpose of this paper is two-fold: to trace the history of the Life Lab program in Santa Cruz, California, and to re-evaluate this program from a sustainability education perspective. Established in 1979, Life Lab is a non-profit organization to promote garden-based learning for children. It is a science-based environmental and sustainability education program. Born out of ‘Nature Study’ in an elementary school garden, the Life Lab program emphasizes learning, experiential and hands-on inquiry in the naturel world as the basis of environmental education. The program encourages children to learn how to love the Earth through pupil-centered education and critical thinking in order to connect with sustainability. In the Life Lab program, pupils learn about ecological soundness, key concepts of agroecology, and relationships among insects, flowers, vegetables, other foods and humans. Agroecology has been essential to this program. A broad definition of agroecology is, “the ecology of sustainable food systems in which people across society are encouraged to be conscious about the sources of food and their relationship with farmers.” Farmer’s markets, community-supported agriculture (CSA), and Community Agroecology Network (CAN) are discussed as examples of organic and agroecological movements in the Santa Cruz area. Creating trust and interactive relationships between consumers and local and global small farmers facilitates the development of direct marketing systems as alternatives to the global corporate market. Both the Life Lab program and the local agroecological movement discussed here are working towards the three pillars of sustainability: ecologically sound, socially just, and economically viable food systems in society. This paper suggests the possibility of introducing sustainability education into Japanese food and agriculture education by building up school gardens that promote experiential and environmental education. It further suggests that the concept of agroecology could play a significant role in sustainable food and agriculture education.
