Expanding institutionalized learning spaces in/for science teacher education: the case of a community garden in Ottawa

The purpose of this experience report is to share and reflect on the authors’ views and experiences of adopting a place-based pedagogy in a community garden to create a science learning space within an institutionalized teacher education program in Ottawa, Canada. The situations described here are based on loose (autobiographical) recollections of events that occurred over the last five years in science methods courses taught by the first author while taking student teachers on a field trip to a local urban community garden. In addition, we present a sample of selected informal feedback collected from participants in support of our argument that noninstitutionalized outdoor urban spaces can provide valuable opportunities to enrich science student teachers’ experience in teacher education programs.