Collaboration with Special Needs Schools

Collaborative Learning Between the Botanical Garden and Special Needs Schools

Since 2011, the Tsukuba Botanical Garden has conducted collaborative learning programs with special needs schools. We have worked on making the garden universally accessible and educational, ensuring that everyone can enjoy learning and fully utilize the facilities.

After the lessons, teachers shared their feedback: some students who previously disliked vegetables began to show interest, and when a class added name labels to the school’s trees, the trees were no longer just trees to the students. Even a single lesson seemed to spark students’ curiosity and interest, which began to extend to other things.

We are sharing the details and outcomes of these activities in the hope that they can serve as a model for collaborative learning between botanical gardens and special needs schools. We hope this will serve as a reference for schools, botanical gardens, and museums across Japan, offering new ways to enjoy plants, reinforcing the educational value of plant-based learning, and providing ideas for regional collaboration.

Program Details

Experiential Plant Learning Program Using the Five Senses (For All Grades)

Description: This program allows students to explore and enjoy plants through all five senses. Activities include touching plants with interesting textures, smelling fragrant plants, observing visually appealing plants, experiencing foaming plants, tasting edible plants, and creating or listening to sounds using plant materials. Students learn by directly experiencing and enjoying the unique qualities of each plant.

Food Education Program Using Sugarcane (For the Senior Department)

In this program, students grow and observe sugarcane, then taste it after harvest as part of a hands-on food education experience.