The Environment is the Third Teacher! – Environmental Studies and the Garden at La Scuola

The Environment is the Third Teacher!

The Reggio Emilia philosophy and approach to learning refers to the environment as a child’s third teacher.

The La Scuola environmental studies and garden program provides students with a unique opportunity to be in a natural setting while learning about the environment. They practice empathy while navigating a thriving habitat and touch, feel, and experience science and math firsthand. In this natural learning space students authentically feel a duty to steward the planet and to help others do so as well.

The natural environment space quite often surprises children and provides them with the spontaneity that leads to new ideas, exploration, creativity, curiosities, and a sense of wonder. During the lessons in our garden learning environment, students explore gardening practices and identification of plants and vegetables, as well as common garden visitors like hummingbirds, butterflies, and bees. Through a multi-sensory relationship to the garden, children gain an understanding of the ecology, the cycle of food production, consumption, and a strengthened sense of stewardship toward their community.

Our PreK – Grade 5 students visit the garden one to two times per week. During that time, depending on the class level, the garden learning environment is a place where the children explore, observe, and integrate their in-classroom inquiry. Much of the class focuses on student-led learning, in a pedagogy and Reggio Emilia approach where we know that the environment is the third teacher.

In this learning process, for example, if the inquiries focus on the topic of water, the visits to the garden help to integrate the connection between water and our ecosystem. And the importance of water towards the survival of the plants and animals within it. If the in-classroom lessons focus on global climate changes, the visits to the garden help the students to understand where our food comes from. They also learn which plants grow better than others, which are native to the area, and how composting nourishes the soil for future plantings. The students’ curiosity in the natural materials and elements applies this learning with reality.

Our graduates understand the interdependence of nature. And how that collaborative, inter-dependent web extends to other aspects of their life — and to other lives around the world. 

Learn more about the Environmental Studies program and Reggio Emilia approach at La Scuola International School. Or why not take an in-person tour at one of our three campuses – San Francisco’s Dogpatch or Mission, and Silicon Valley. We’d love to share the La Scuola magic with you. 

To read more about La Scuola, visit our website, or contact our Admissions team at admissions@lascuolasf.org.