Garden competition in schools. IV National Award for Educational Gardens

After the post on Rooftop Greenhouses, I bring you a new article from the category “Current news and novelties” to tell you about a piece of news that I was very happy to learn about: a vegetable garden contest in schools.

We have already discussed in other posts the importance and multitude of benefits of school gardens, we have even publicized initiatives for urban gardens in schools in Barcelona. But until now, despite the fact that it is the fourth edition of this National Award for Ecological Educational Gardens, we had not been aware of the existence of this competition for gardens in schools.

I really want to visit a garden in a school in my city, Madrid, since it is one of the few types of gardens that I have not yet visited in Spain (in China we did visit the school garden of the Shangzhuang Middle School). So let’s see if someone dares to tell us about a school garden in Madrid and we are going to visit it!

Now I will tell you a little more about this vegetable garden contest in schools in Spain, and hopefully other initiatives like this can arise in more countries around the world.

IV National Award for Ecological Educational Gardens 2017. Who organizes it and who can participate

The Vida Sana Association and the Triodos Foundation are organizing this 2017 the fourth edition of the vegetable garden contest in schools in Spain.

It is an Award with four categories:

• The first three categories: for educational centers with vegetable gardens for infant (1), primary (2) and ESO (3) students
• The fourth category: for social farming projects. The objective of these social agriculture gardens should be to create an educational project, for job placement, social, or to improve people’s physical and mental health, through work in the garden. An example of a possible candidate for this award in this category would be, for example, La Huerta de Montecarmelo, which we visited some time ago (Also included in this fourth category are garden projects in special adult education centers and in Baccalaureate educational centers and Training Cycles).

What is the deadline for submission and the prize for the vegetable garden contest in schools?

The deadline for submitting projects to participate in the National Prize for Educational Gardens is from June 1 to July 15, 2017. During this period of time, school gardens that want to participate must fill out the registration for the contest and present a small explanatory report. about the school garden or social agriculture project (I leave you in a link below the bases of the contest where everything is explained).

There will be, for each of the categories, a first prize of €1,000 and a second prize with material for the organic garden. The top 7 finalists in each category will also receive a diploma.

But the prize is not only the one awarded by the organization of this garden contest… The prize is also that this school garden is talked about, that this type of news is spread, that participation in the garden contest makes more students and school parents get involved in this type of project to have more sustainable cities and better nutritional education. Hopefully we get it little by little!

In this link you can see the Bases of the National Award for Ecological Educational Gardens 2017.

More about green and sustainable initiatives of the Triodos Foundation

In addition to this school garden competition, the Triodos Bank Foundation also organizes and manages a crowdfunding campaign to create educational or social gardens.

Thanks to this initiative, if any school or association wants to set up a garden but does not have the budget to do so, they can go to the Foundation to start a fundraising campaign that can make the garden a reality. I thought it was a great idea too!

You can find out more about these two initiatives in the Triodos Foundation educational gardens section.I hope you liked the news! And share to spread if you know people who are participating in a school garden! Greetings