Investigating the relationship between gaining arboricultural knowledge and understanding from sustainable development learning for year 3 / 4 children

The main aim of this research study is to explore Key Stage 2 pupils’ knowledge about the maintenance of trees in the urban area, its contribution to a sustainable environment, and how the school’s education for sustainable development has contributed to this.
It is widely accepted that trees have a significant role to play in sustainability. When discussing this it appears that these trees are usually considered to be growing in far off tropical environments or in rural environments and not local urban areas. Trees have a significant role to play not just in capturing carbon, but by providing shelter and shade amongst many other things in urban areas. However trees become more susceptible to direct and indirect damage in urban areas due to the pressures of urban living placed upon them.
At this time there has been no study of the impact of sustainability learning and the knowledge and understanding gained to contribute to sustainable tree care by key stage 2 children.
This research study investigated sustainability learning delivered to key stage 2 pupils by means of analyzing a questionnaire completed by twenty five children and by interviewing focus groups of four children and their learning facilitators (five adults) to realize the knowledge and understanding they had gained for sustainable tree care.
As a result of completing the above we learned that limited transferable knowledge had been gained by the children from activities mainly linked to tending to a school allotment and attendance at a gardening club. However cross curriculum learning had also supported this.
The implications of the findings are that suitability learning needs to occupy a more central and underpinning role in the curriculum, which needs strong cross curriculum support to especially support the gaining of knowledge and understanding for tree care.