Johanna Lochner
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Education and educational research in agricultural sciences
Johanna Lochner - BSc Organic Agriculture, graduated in 2012.
Currently: self-employed educational consultant; PhD student at HU Berlin for subject didactics in agricultural and horticultural sciences.
From agricultural studies to education for sustainable development
Already in 2009, when I came to Witzenhausen for the Bachelor Ecological Agriculture, I had a great interest in agriculture in combination with educational work. Is it social agriculture? Do I want to go to a school farm? Or rather into environmental education? I had to search a bit until I found what has excited me for a good ten years now.
With Marina Hethke and my work as a freelance specialist guide in the tropical greenhouse, I came into contact with education for sustainable development (ESD) and then everything just fell into place. ESD combines topics of sustainability globally and locally, such as agriculture with the promotion of sustainability skills and thus many things that are very important to me.
As part of the bachelor's degree, I dealt intensively with ESD in the elective "Fachführerschein", in the module "Umweltkommunikation" but also in the small and large project work. And thanks to a recommendation from Marina Hethke, I took part in a leadership training on ESD from the Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) in 2012, from which many things developed further for me.
Looking beyond the horizon
Especially the global perspective of ESD has fascinated me from the beginning. Before I came to Witzenhausen to study, I lived and worked for one and a half years in Peru in various gardens and agricultural projects. I was able to deepen my enthusiasm for and knowledge of crop diversity during my studies as well as during a semester abroad at the partner university Universidad Agraria La Molina in Lima, Peru. The global historical distribution of crops was one of the great "aha" effects during my studies and today it flows into my educational work. I take students "On a Vegetable World Tour" and we deal with questions whose answers I often know from bachelor modules from Witzenhausen: What did people eat in Germany in the 1700s? Where do different types of vegetables originally come from and what does their wild form look like? The surprised looks of students when I let them look into my corn treasure chest with 30 different types of corn - as part of the educational module "Strawberry corn... what's that?" - always delight me.
At the interface of education and agriculture
But science hasn't really let me go either. Since 2016, I have been doing my doctorate at the Humboldt University of Berlin in the subject didactics of agricultural and horticultural sciences on the international, virtual networking of schoolchildren and their school gardens (virtual school garden exchange). Here, too, I move at the interface of education and agriculture and usually say: I do educational research in agricultural sciences.
The question: "What would have happened if I had not..." does not arise. Nevertheless, I am very sure that I learned many things in Witzenhausen for which I am infinitely grateful today and without which I would certainly be standing somewhere else today. In addition to all the knowledge, there are of course the many people who have become very dear to me - great friendships that will certainly last for a long time to come.