Learning Gardens:

Sustainability Laboratories Growing High Performance Brains

The state of citizens critical thinking for sustainability is being tested by rapidly rising challenges
of climate, food, energy, education, waste and governance. Population and globalization drive
closer coupling of these Sociological, Ecological and Technological Systems (SETS), which
continues to increase emergent complexity and uncertainty, destabilization, and potential for
catastrophic failure, added to which are system imbalances of human dominance achieved by
using technology and culture to transcend genetic and biological constraints to cognition and
evolution. Despite the rich potential within learning gardens for human development,
sustainability knowledge, and academic mastery, all through direct experience constitutive for
developing brain architecture and metacognition processing for critical thinking, garden-based
education has failed to evolve its curriculum and real-time assessment in order to strengthen
these outcomes and become a viable component of mainstream learning infrastructure1.
This paper discusses a not-for-profit in Rochester, NY, Rochester Roots (ROOTS), situated
within three public schools in poor urban neighborhoods, that is transforming garden-based
pedagogy into sustainability education delivered within school- and community-based living
Sustainability Laboratories using entrepreneurial, internship and STEM specific Project-Based
Learning (PBL) activities focused for brain development. Building upon the naturally engaging
complexity of living systems and Self-Determination Theory (SDT) for intrinsic
motivation2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11 students learn sustainability as domain-specific knowledge12, with
inherent crosscutting principles, concepts, vocabulary, and whole-systems disposition. For
example; patterns, paradigm, feedback loops, consequences, values, uncertainty, evolving etc.
are applicable, consistent and can elicit systemic insights and inform decision-making in any
academic discipline. Bringing these discrete disciplines into an experientially framed inquiry
process can then be mutually reinforcing and increase rigor for both and across all domains.
These become embodied as students solve wicked problem sustainability challenges
(CHALLENGE) of living systems using strategies for knowledge-creation, resiliency-building and
adaptive-innovation that also result in metaphors for their own and their communitys managedresiliency and adaptive-management13.
Student inquiries are initiated using a five step Sustainability Framework (FRAMEWORK) that
guides self- and group-directed reflective learning through Transformative Action Research
(TAR) 14,15 investigating complex systems, uncertainty and decision-making. They are
scaffolded by direct instruction, their increasing symbiotic academic mastery of Common Core
State Standards (CCSS), and a collaborative learning16 team (TEAM) comprised of ROOTS
teachers, classroom teachers, students, and invited university students and faculty and industry
professionals. The Sustainability Curriculum (CURRICULUM) is co-created and co-evolved in
ROOTS teacher practicums by TEAMs and is adapted real-time within the sustainability
laboratories by the TEAM, including refinement of a days learning objectives by the academic
classroom teacher using a ROOTS ADAPTCard, wherein they specify any current or
challenging academic principles, concepts, and/or vocabulary being studied that experiencing
would be most helpful to student cognition / retention. As Polyani said, knowing the physics
proving that balancing a bike while riding is possible is not the same as knowing how to ride a
bike17.

The living-systems format of ROOTS sustainability laboratories offers an almost limitless

capacity to support academic classroom teachers. Studies indicate a systemic structure of
positive impacts of gardens on many different levels for students, ranging from self-concept to
motivation and life skills to environmental attitudes, with multiple pathways by which garden
programs may potentially strengthen the healthy development of students.18 Gardens are
environments in miniature and in sympathy with nature that ground children in the experiences
of growth and decay, predator-prey relations, pollination, carbon cycles, soil morphology, and
microbial life: the simple and the complex simultaneously and are intensely local.19 Their
meaning is a complex ecology of idea, place and action,20 ideal as living laboratories for handson constructivist learning, in which students can see what they are learning and in turn, apply
that knowledge21 to real world situations22 and as a foundation for an instructional strategy for
integrated learning, in and across disciplines, through active, engaging, real-world
experiences.23 Recognition of this pedagogical flexibility was confirmed by the observation of a
Montessori teacher [Lisa] during a ROOTS practicum, we can teach anything in common core
using this context and another participant, from a traditional school, [Holly] comment, this is a
better context for teaching students the most difficult area, abstract concepts, such as: contrast /
compare, temporal concepts, etc.]
The ROOTS program systemic impact on student life-long outcomes is greatest when combined
with its afterschool program where students in grades three thru six create a product, service or
business to improve sustainability. Students are excited by conceiving and building their own
business and start this process with the FRAMEWORKs Model-Based Inquiry (MBI)
approach24, a paradigm that can engage learners more deeply with content and embodies five
epistemic characteristics of scientific knowledge: that ideas represented in the form of models
are testable, revisable, explanatory, conjectural, and generative.25 Causality is a basic theme in
students analysis and when they develop their influence models, generally as cross-grade level
student teams, they focus on depicting the existing SETS context that their business must be
sustainable within, the key components of their businesss operation and success, and how it
will improve wellbeing. This is then temporally extended as a pathway toward well-becoming
shown in their system dynamics model of impacts in the future, say years 1, 5, 10, and 15,
which we observe then causes them to reflect back on potential missing components of their
starting hypothesis, assumptions or requirements.
One scaffolding method used to familiarize students with dynamics modeling is NetLogos
interactive predator-prey model26 that shows a simulation of wolf, sheep and grass with
accompanying graphs for analyzing the dynamics of the systemic interactions; needless-to-say,
the students actively engage as game players and quickly grasp the essential components and
analytics, which they are then asked to replicate for their own systems using a Vensim systems
dynamics model27 supported by a senior engineering student, [Navid] in Arizona State
Universitys School of Engineering for the Built Environment.
Because modeling is simple to grasp and students base the initial causal relationships on their
life experience it becomes a simple mechanism to help transcend socioeconomic barriers to
learning opportunities, with the advantage of being a bottom-up window for understanding
whats needed to improve the wellbeing for them, their families and neighborhoods, i.e., urban
environments. After mentioning to a NYS Department of Education administrator, Chike, that
while in a 65% poverty school, ROOTS has yet to observe a student that cannot be a deep
thinker when asked to express their knowledge and experience through an influence model

relating their life experience to their business model, he suggested that this is huge because it
transcends the traditional socioeconomic barriers that we are constantly trying to overcome in
education
This approach to sustainability curriculum supports students navigation of multiple
epistemologies28, which fundamentally alters the typical pedagogical approach that assumes
science and science learning are acultural. From this perspective, Paynes model for teaching
children in poverty29,30 is helpful, not for its presumption of the need for a deficit-model approach
for teaching children in poverty, but rather as a checklist of metacognitive process metrics that
all life-long learners, regardless of background and developmental stage, can continuously
address to improve cognition to remain resilient and adaptable to the rising sustainability
challenges; hence, ROOTS has mapped these within its FRAMEWORK processes.
Student models also depict the metacognitive processes of critical thinking that they are using,
and by which teachers are mutually aided in developing a Theory of the Mind of the student.
These models become a basis for TEAM support of deeper personalized instruction thru direct
and indirect methods and preferably Socratic process, where through reflection students reach
new understandings about themselves and the world around them. Constructive critique of
student entrepreneurial projects can be offered by introducing an additional causal node,
including feedback influence, in the students model. ROOTS experience is that the students
response is to then quickly add their own insights connecting to the new node; a process of
indwelling were students and TEAMs learn together, thus turning the classroom into a
community of inquiry, with reflective thought as the guiding principle 31.
Visualization of the students metacognitive processes can also aid quality of teacher/learner
interaction by assisting teachers in developing a more comprehensive and accurate theory of a
learners brain through expertise in achieving five awareness states identified by Rodriguez (of
self, learner, interaction, teaching practice, and context), who redefines teaching as an
evolutionary cognitive skill that develops in all people over time32,33,34. ROOTS considers this
teacher capability to be critical in achieving its goal of empowering students through
sustainability education with the capability for knowledge-creation. This goes beyond the
Piagetian view that learners construct their own knowledge, which is true of all learning but as
the kind of productive work knowledge creating companies do to merit that label and turns
classrooms into becoming knowledge-creating organizations in their own right...with the
central goal of advancing the creation of community knowledge 35 36 37 38 39 40 41. This is
described by Bereiter and Scardamalia as problem solving with a difference that meets certain
criteria: it has to have value to people other than yourself, its value must endure for some time
beyond the moment, it must have application beyond the current situation that gave rise to it,
and it must display some modicum of creativity42.
ROOTS has emerging evidence that its students can rise to this level. For example, Trinity, a
sixth grade Montessori Student is developing The Perfect Stew game where players use cards
with potential components (carrots, peas, etc.) to make soups. Her stated objective is to raise
the cognitive level of her fellow students through game play and when asked about system
boundary conditions she responded, sell it to seven countries, especially China, and when
asked why, she said it is only fair, because they share their new products with us that we
should share ours with them. As part of ROOTS preparation for replicating the content and
delivery of its program to consistently achieve these type of outcomes it is developing tools,
such as; a student mobile plant monitoring and growth simulation game apps business for class

and community plant specific growing technologies knowledge, the CURRICULUM Card to
scaffold teacher practicums, and the EXPERIENCE Card that ROOTS provides TEAMS to
scaffold and discipline the ROOTS learning processes connecting sustainability education,
teacher practice, metacognition, critical thinking, scientific method, and action research within
the FRAMEWORK (See Exhibit 1).

EXPERIENCE Card
TEAM Learning Processes for Metacognitive Development
SI Sustainability FRAMEWORK
Transformative
Action Research

Analogous to
Scientific Method
Experiment
Design

STEP 1

STEP 2

STEP 3

STEP 4

STEP 5

Reveal
System
Influences
to develop
Influence &
Dynamics Models

Discern
Patterns &
Paradigms
to apply
Awareness &
Expertise

Choose
Decision
Perspective (s)
to determine
Philosophy &
Boundaries

Develop &
Characterize
Scenarios
to recognize
Values &
Uncertainty

Weigh
Consequences
& Tradeoffs
to make
Better
Decisions

Make
Observation

Ask
Question

Identify
Variables

Create
Hypothesis

Design
Experiment

Declarative Procedural
Knowledge Knowledge

Analogous to
Scientific Method
Experiment
Interpretation

Metacognition Processes1,2

CRITICAL THINKING3
Cognitive Outcomes

Inference

1
2
3

Conditional
Information Debugging Evaluation
Planning Monitoring
Knowledge
Management Strategy of Learning

Recognition of Assumptions

Deduction

Interpretation

Evaluation of Arguments

Metacognition refers to the ability to reflect upon, understand, and control ones learning
Schraw, G., & Dennison, R. S. (1994). Assessing metacognitive awareness. Contemporary educational psychology, 19(4), 460-475
Critical Thinking: The ability to Identify, Analyze, Construct, and Evaluate Evidence and Arguments in a Deliberate and Rigorous Way

Exhibit 1

The power of ROOTS methodologys outcomes was demonstrated when The Engineers for a
Sustainable World asked [Subash], a ROOTS third grade Montessori student immersed within
this experience, to present their April 2015 National Conference Challenge. In front of
approximately 225 undergraduate thru PhD engineering students in attendance he asked the
competing teams to support him by developing proposals to improve the wellbeing and wellbecoming outcomes of the nine student entrepreneurial businesses being developed by him and
his peers at Montessori and to please use influence and system dynamics models for context
and formal mathematical function statements for clarity. The chairman, Alex, himself a PhD,
noted that many of the attending engineers system sustainability thinking was not at this level,
but go ahead because that is where the society hoped to lead them (See video on YouTube).
This is consistent with the comments of Clark, an RIT Engineering faculty member to some of
the twenty RIT senior engineers that work with ROOTS entrepreneurs, who, after watching the
3rd 6th grade students present their entrepreneur project posters to parents, which format they
used to try simulating PhD conference posters (artistically refined by the ROOTS teacher),
asked Don, a ROOTS invited expert on sustainability, can you come speak to our senior
design engineering class, because these kids are thinking at a higher level than many of our
engineers [ref ROOTs video link of posters].

ROOTS curriculum develops students metacognitive awareness for critical thinking for
sustainability within SETS, which is enhanced with STEM processes skills and aesthetics skills
for imagining hypothesis / scenarios, recognizing elegant solutions, and critical thinking
transferability across domains43. With accompanying development of academic achievement,
social relationship building, and decision-making for wellbeing, (ROOTS program outcomes
identified through RCSD funded modeling of approximately 200 students, teachers and parents)
this simultaneously develops high performance brains, defined as enabling students to be
resilient within a sustainability milieu. These metacognitive skills44,45,46 are foundational to
college and adaptable career readiness, where adaptive capacity for multiple careers supported
by lifelong learning across discontinuous formal, informal and non-formal learning
infrastructure47,48 and opportunities is required, and are transferable through students,
entrepreneurism and outreach to families and then cities, to build resilience capacity for the
unprecedented sustainability threats emerging with the Anthropocene.
ROOTS program focus is primarily on communities and schools within urban environments
where opportunities for systemic societal impact are greatest and community colleges and
technological and medical universities partnerships are available for ROOTS unique approach
to developing real-world STEM infused critical thinking. Studies also show that per capita
innovation rates increase with population density49 and that cities are concentrations of selfexperimenting societies with an opportunity to impact their processes for evolving cultural
cognition for sustainability through AR.
Traditional education, including scientific method, teach processes for perceiving, analyzing and
communicating about phenomenon and with each grade the nuances become more prescribed
and disciplined and reinforced by systemic testing rewards. While this relatively linear approach
to learning and its sophisticated capability for symbol enabled conceptual thinking has resulted
in what many consider to be major advances in quality of life for mankind, when relied upon too
heavily it prejudices against learner and citizens agency and knowledge-creation and hence the
evolution of cultural cognition away from being grounded in diverse direct experience and whole
systems perspective.
Neuroscience informs us that an evolutionary adaptive trait of the brain is that its neural
architecture remains plastic throughout our lifetime, albeit declining with age, and that this is
significantly shaped by both genetics and epigenetics in response to the environment, i.e.,
neurons that fire together, wire together; thus, both sides of the nature versus nurture
argument can claim support. We are also learning that concepts and experiences are located
separately within the brain and that the anterior location of a concept is loosely connected to
clusters of neurons associated with direct experiences; hence, concepts, while not being directly
embodied, are neurologically grounded by embodied experiences that are context specific50
[mahon]. This direct experience component is consistent with the epic stage in The Evolution of
Cultural Cognition Theory that suggests out-of-context these are not easily accessed [Donald].
For example, if I had a bad experience with a lion I do not remember it until triggered by seeing
another lion; however, if I have bad experiences with several different animal species a concept
grounded in these experiences might arise that animals can be dangerous and I can apply this
concept by being cautious with any new encounter independent of specific previous experience.
This is consistent with recent neural research that indicates that it is concepts, and not
experiences, that are responsible for consistent behavior across contexts.

We posit that an Achilles heel of traditional educational programs is that while recognizing the
power of teaching abstract concepts it focuses structurally on teaching concepts that are
domain specific in nature and grounded in too narrow a set of direct experiences to develop
cross disciplinary effectiveness. This results in a neurological incongruence that confounds the
attempts of traditional education systems to teach the application of siloed disciplines across
context and domains. However, the ROOTS program offers educators an opportunity to
transcend this apparent dichotomy by balancing with an experiential component, while
predominantly maintaining their traditional approach.
It is too early to determine the long-term impact of the ROOTS program. However, anecdotally,
two students who were on a pathway of potentially not even graduating from high school have
been successful. One completed a master degree at Cornell University and is presently serving
in the Peace Corps in Tanzania working HIV patients to improve nutrition thru urban agriculture;
the other operates a catering and plants business. Based on the observations and comments of
ROOTS teachers and invited experts, college professors and their students, Montessori
principal and teachers, and parents associated with the ROOTS program it has the potential for
having a profound impact on PreK-PhD educational pedagogy and trajectory of students and
their expectation of their teachers to be system thinkers assisting them with entrepreneurial
business development and systemic change toward wellbeing and well-becoming thinking.
However, a major unknown is the future of the program in a public school system that is in a
constant state of flux and with physical infrastructure shifts that truncate long-term investments
in learning gardens and other sustainability laboratory investments at a moments notice. To
improve its learning outcomes it has relocated its headquarters into an entrepreneurial startup
and lite manufacturing facility where students can interact with adult entrepreneurs driving real
businesses. It also has commitments that when funding permits educators from Harvard School
of Education, MITs cognitive neuroscience lab, and Arizona State Universitys Sustainability
Engineering School will help develop assessments for ROOTS teacher practicum development
of teacher capabilities, student cognitive development outcomes, and sustainability education
outcomes.

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