Crosspollinating cities: Growing ecological literacy in the urban garden

Abstract

Invertebrate conservation involves biophysical and human dimensions. Cities act as refuges for insect pollinators by offering year-round floral resources and a matrix of habitable greenspace. Greenspaces, gardening and urban garden education may also offer rich opportunities for people to interact and learn about invertebrate ecology and thereby nurture positive orientations toward nature and reduce the “extinction of experience”. In this thesis, I use participatory action research, interdisciplinary, and mixed-methods approaches across two cities; Sydney, Australia and Tokyo, Japan. In chapter 1, I detail the interconnection between community gardens and urban forests in Greater Sydney, Australia, by seeking evidence for the ‘spillover’ of insect pollinators between them. In chapter 2, I develop a framework for integrative STEAM learning in a pollinator-focused curriculum for primary and high school. The framework synthesizes place- based learning in the garden, an engineering design process, and a student-as-co-researcher pedagogy, where students co-design an experiment to learn about the ecology and diversity of local insect pollinators. I evaluate the framework and curriculum according to scientific literacy and science identity criteria in chapter 2, and on student’s understandings of pollinator morphology, diversity, and functioning in chapter 3. In chapter 4 I explore the relationships between gardening, time spent in nature, and attitudes towards invertebrates amongst adults in Japan through an online survey. In chapter 5, I investigate whether it is possible to change biophilia and biophobia towards invertebrates with an online urban gardening intervention, using a quantitative survey of course participants. Finally, in chapter 6, I use interviews of course participants to investigate the underlying process of attitudinal and behavioural change, in a pathway towards bio-respect via curiosity, empathy, and ecological literacy.