Partnerships and Initiatives
BGEN has partnered with a number of UK and global initatives to promote excellence in environmental and plant-based education. We believe that education organisations and initiatives are stronger when we partner together and build on one another's strengths. Central to this work is supporting and promoting our members' interests in the policy arena.
Read more below about each of the exciting partnerships and initiatives that BGEN supports and promotes. Additionally, we are always interested in exploring new partnerships and relationships. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to discuss new partnership opportunities.
Some useful Botanical Garden education organisations include:
Growing Schools
BGEN is proud to support the work of Growing Schools.
Growing Schools aims to give all children the opportunity to connect with the living environment, whether it is an inner-city window box or a vast country estate, a school veg plot or a natural woodland. Interacting with living plants and animals provides a very rich, hands-on learning experience in which both formal and informal education can flourish.
Growing Schools focuses on three areas that are accessible to all, at some level, as a context for learning:- Food and farming, including the managed countryside
- Gardens, gardening and green spaces
- Wildlife and the natural environment
For more information, visit www.growingschools.org.uk.
or read the growing schools 2008/09 annual report, growing_.pdf
Learning Outside the Classroom
BGEN is a signatory to the Learning Outside the Classroom (LOTC) Manifesto.
LOTC believes that every young person should experience the world beyond the classroom as an essential part of learning and personal development, whatever their age, ability or circumstances.
The organisation's aim is not only to make clear that learning outside the classroom has significant learning benefits for participants but also to explore how it can be successfully delivered so that more young people develop their knowledge, understanding and skills beyond the classroom walls.
For more information, visit www.lotc.org.uk.
Global Strategy for Plant Conservation
BGEN's work helps to support Target 8 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation.
The GSPC highlights the importance of plants and the ecosystem services they provide for all life on earth, and aims to ensure their conservation. It consists of 16 outcome-oriented targets for conservation with a deadline of 2010. Target 8 is especially relevant to BGEN's work and the work of our members. Target 14 calls for "the importance of plant diversity and the need for its conservation incorporated into communication, educational and public-awareness programmes."
For more information, visit www.plants2010.org.