Orchard and educational program in a primary school

Within the “Orchard and educational program in a primary school” at Cristobal Colón, Valladolid (6 to 12 years old), an orchard was established to engage students, families, and the neighbourhood. FPNCyL, which is part of the regional government in Castilla y León, approached the school with the idea to renaturalise the schoolyard by creating urban farming infrastructures. It responds to the social and environmental vulnerability of children in old schools where open spaces and playgrounds were designed without vegetation. Other problems addressed are a lack of motivation and the economic and family problems of students (like nutritional patterns of children).
19 fruit trees, 54 berry shrubs, 16 aromatic shrubs, 8 orchard planters and 7 orchards have been planted. The main educational objective is to use schoolyard facilities (garden, fruit hall) to generate new learning scenarios for all ages. Children can learn in an experiential, emotional and cooperative way mathematics, physics, English, art, and other cross-cutting issues such as healthy eating, energy efficiency and climate change and food resilience. Activities like calculation of the volume of water for irrigation, the volume of land needed, probability of success of the seeds used, diversity of materials, how to make budgets... have been performed.
The school Cristobal Colón is now part of the municipal network of school gardens and has contacted local fruit canning companies to produce jam from yard fruits.