Editor's Preface

Connecting with Plants: Lessons for Life Papers from the 5th International Congress on Education in Botanic Gardens Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney 29 September – 4 October 2002 Plants = Life Connecting with Plants: Lessons for Life: papers from the 5th International Congress on Education in Botanic Gardens Edited by: Christopher Hobson Published by: Botanic Gardens Conservation International Descanso House, 99 Kew Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 3BW, UK June 2004 ISBN 0 9539141 6 X © Botanic Gardens Conservation International 2004 Permission is granted for extracts from any part of this publication to be made for non-profit purposes. Preface and Acknowledgements Editor’s Preface Finally, two years after the Sydney Education Congress, BGCI is publishing material from the Congress. BGCI is now able to publish the following material in this volume: • The majority of the papers delivered at the Congress. These are grouped according to the main themes of the Congress programme. • Recollections of the Congress by several of the participants. This was originally published as an article in the winter 2002 issue of Fronds. This volume will be made available for purchase as an Adobe Acrobat file (PDF format) on a CD-Rom. The file will also be placed on the BGCI web site. Acknowledgements We would like to thank Coordinator and Committee of the Botanic Gardens Education network (BGEN) for permission to reproduce the article “Connecting with Plants – Sydney” from the Winter 20002 issue of Fronds journal. We would like to thank M. Patrick Péron (CBN-Brest) for permission to use photographs in the article “Children’s gardens: an international partnership using the internet”. Connecting with Plants: Lessons for Life 2000 iii Contents Contents iii Preface iii Acknowledgements vi Recollections of the Congress Novel methods in interpretation and communication Amirtham Alexander & John S Britto (Annai Genetic Garden, Tamil Nadu, India) Environmental education through Eco Clubs in selected schools in three districts of Tamil 1 Nadu, India Christine Preston (Cambridge, UK) Interpreting the garden for visitors with sight difficulties 6 Maite Lascurain & Nancy Conde (Xalapa, Mexico) Auto-guide series for the Francisco Javier Clavijero Botanical Garden 10 Peter Lehmann (Canberra, Australia) On the ground – making things happen 15 Jenny Stuart (Brisbane, Australia) Botanical boats 18 Mark Loveday (Cranbourne, Australia) Inspired by nature: art and the environment 21 Bel Browning & Mary South (Hastings, UK; Eastleigh, UK) Working on a public open space or park 24 Romi Ige (New York, USA) Brooklyn Botanic Garden Interpretive Master Plan 27 Multiculturalism John Lennis (Sydney, Australia) Multiculturalism and indigenous issues in interpretation 31 Linking science with sustainability Jan Ellis (Brisbane, Australia) ‘This Dome is Your Home’: using an icon facility to teach education for sustainability 39 N. Anil Kumar & V. P. Sajeev (Wayanad, India) Developing a conservation garden as a centre for the ‘Every child a scientist’ programme 42 Christine Millican (Llanarthne, UK) Everyday choices: making sustainability accessible to visitors 46 Barbara Kushner-Kurland (New York, USA) Planting the Earth: teaching youth by teaching their teachers 48 Multiculturalism and indigenous issues in interpretation Steve Meredith (Adelaide, Australia) Connecting to culture 53 Christine Wildhaber (Southwark, London, UK) Celebrating cultural diversity: growing for healthy living 57 iv Connecting with Plants: Lessons for Life Contents Forming partnerships Pat Irwin & Heila Lotz-Sisitka (Grahamstown, South Africa) Forming partnerships: insights from southern Africa 59 Gary Shadforth (Melbourne, Australia) Alien invaders: learning about biodiversity by monitoring environmental weeds 64 Abel Barasa Atiti (Nairobi, Kenya) Linking with schools for joint interpretive processes 69 Catherine Ducatillion & Steve Meredith (Antibes, France; Adelaide, Australia) Encounters with naturalists 74 Carolann Walach Baldyga (Miami, USA) Community participation in exhibit development 79 Fabienne Virago & Kathy Stewart (Sydney, Australia) Making contact 83 Didik Widyatmoko & Lorraine Perrins (Bogor, Indonesia; Sydney, Australia) Collaborating for conservation: how can botanic gardens staff in developed and developing countries work together to promote education and conservation in the botanical hotspots of the world? 85 Loïc Ruellan (Brest, France) Children’s gardens: an international partnership using the Internet 90 Chris Millican (Llanarthne, UK) Setting up a new education department – developing strategies and forming partnerships 95 S. Seeni, Lucy Sutherland, Julia Willison & V.S. Manickam (Palayamkottai, India; Kew & London, UK) Partnership project on environmental education for primary school teachers and 100 children at the Kodaikanal Botanic Garden, India Volunteering Janelle Hatherly (Sydney, Australia) Volunteering in focus: the panoramic view 108 Barbara Boyle (Kew, UK) The pleasures and pitfalls of guiding at Kew 111 Carolann Walach Baldyga (Miami, Florida) Volunteering in focus: the broad picture 114 Evaluation and research Katherine Stewart (Sydney, Australia) What learning? What theory? 118 Robert Brett (Cambridge, UK) Changing the face of a botanic garden by tackling the concept of sustainability head on: the Cambridge University Botanic Garden and our learning curve 125 Eugenie Novellie (Pretoria, South Africa) Evaluating the impact of a teacher development programme 130 Jesús Piqueras (Stockholm, Sweden) Research projects with plants in secondary schools 135 139 List of Authors Connecting with Plants:Lessons for Life v Recollections Recollections of the Congress1 BGCI's 5th International Congress on Education in Botanic Gardens (29th September – 4th October 2002) was held at the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney. Here are some thoughts and impressions of the event from BGEN members who attended. Tess Darwin Edwards: reflections on Susan Strauss’s address ‘Passionate Facts, a story way of speaking science’ That long, long ago it was, in old time was it, when ne'er else in the world was formed, there yawned in space a vast gulf of nothingness called Ginnungagap. It hung like a windless summer day, Ginnungagap, and far, far to the north of Ginnungagap was Niflheim. Oh Niflheim, the realm of icy misty darkness, Niflheim, where twelve rivers of ice creaked and crashed into Ginnungagap and venomous vapours wisped through and about huge heaps of ice ... From the first word, Susan Strauss, storyteller supreme, had her audience enthralled. It was 9.30 am, and however late they may have been enjoying the delights of Sydney the night before, I doubt that a single member of the audience dozed through this unique keynote address. The Norse myth of Yggdrasil, the World Tree, I had thought I was familiar with. In Susan's performance, it came alive: she told the story using the full range of her voice and her entire body. We could feel the terror of that vast yawning space engulfing us, shiver as we heard the creaking ice and whirling winds of Niflheim. Susan has been a storyteller for over 20 years, with a particular interest in stories about the natural world, and she is undoubtedly a world leader in this field. I had read her book The Passionate Fact some years ago, and increasingly find myself using a storytelling approach, and employing professional storytellers, in my environmental education work. Meeting Susan at the workshop she ran before the Congress, and hearing her keynote address, reinforced my belief in the power of storytelling as an effective medium for engaging people's interest and conveying important messages about our relationship with nature. The workshop focused on creating a story from personal experience, paying particular attention to the sound and rhythm of the words we used, which, as Susan demonstrated, can convey as much meaning as the words themselves. For me, Susan's contributions were the highlight of a stimulating and thought-provoking Congress. The other aspect I found particularly interesting was the attention paid to issues relating to indigenous people. When I was last in Australia, in 1993, I was disappointed and disturbed at the lack of interest and interpretation in botanic gardens on the original inhabitants of the land and their intimate relationship with plants and the land. Now - in Sydney at least - that has been completely reversed; the Aborigines are honoured and their knowledge is interpreted with great respect. Many of these issues discussed in various presentations, workshops and conversations were as relevant to my work in Scotland as they are to people in Australia, India or anywhere else in the world where traditional knowledge is being lost from one generation to the next. All of us working in this field are seeking ways to keep our connection with plants a living, meaningful part of life, and it was very encouraging to attend this Congress where so many useful ideas and approaches were being shared. 1 Several of the participants at the Congress subsequently described their impressions and conclusions in an article which was published in the Winter 2002 issue of Fronds, the journal of the UK Botanic Gardens Education Network (BGEN). We are very grateful to the BGEN Committee for allowing us to use this article as a basis for this section of the Proceedings. vi Connecting with Plants: Lessons for Life Recollections Michael Holland: I feel rather fortunate to have had the chance of attending the Conference at Sydney. It not only gave me the chance

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