Curricular Flexibility at the Botanical Garden of the University of Coimbra: an innovative pedagogical project in a time of pandemic

Abstract

Education in Botanical Gardens is an educational practice that facilitates the teaching-learning process through the multiplicity of opportunities, models, and sensory marks of a natural setting. In a protocol between the Botanical Garden of the University of Coimbra (JBUC) and the Jaime Cortesão School, a pedagogical project for flexible curricula for secondary education in biology emerges, “The Botanical Garden in 3 Seasons”. Corresponding to the curricular strategies of disciplinary intersection, this action in JBUC presents as main objectives: to understand the impacts on the institutional mission and on the students, in terms of attitude, knowledge acquisition, appreciation of space and experiences outside the classroom. The methodology, based on questionnaires applied in three seasonal phases, the latter marked by the situation, explores questions: How does non-formal education impact the students’ school path? Does the flexibility and autonomy of the curriculum promote and stimulate attention and learning? How do students get involved and welcome these projects? Does your motivation and interest in the subject under study increase? Of the results obtained in this stage, the valuation of trips to JBUC stands out, a novelty that promotes the desire to participate and do more. The real contact with the changes in the life cycle of the plants stimulated the motivation, the mobilization of knowledge and skills, allowing the work to be carried out. Despite the 2-month interval, institutions and students readjusted. Demonstrating commitment, will, creativity, capacity for reinvention, it was possible to achieve goals, confirming this practice as an educational alternative to be regularly integrated by educational institutions.