When a Parking Lot Becomes a Garden
At one of the locations of ROC Mondriaan, a vocational college in the Netherlands with a campus at Tinwerf, a transformation has taken place that is at once modest in scale and significant in meaning: a former parking lot has been converted into a green schoolyard. Plants, information panels, and living vegetation now occupy a space that once served only as storage for cars — and in doing so, they have created a permanent, informal learning environment for the entire school community.
The schoolyard was redesigned and is maintained by students from most of the technical departments within the institution, making the project both a collaboration across disciplines and a practical exercise in environmental stewardship. The green space has become a place where students eat lunch, pause between classes, and — if they pay attention — read the information panels describing the plants growing around them.
Non-Formal Learning in a Formal Setting
The power of this initiative lies in its simplicity. Students do not attend a class on sustainability: they inhabit a space that embodies it. The schoolyard is a constant, ambient presence — a form of learning that works through exposure and curiosity rather than instruction. It illustrates one of the key principles of sustainable learning: that the environment itself is an educator, and that transforming the spaces where young people spend their time can be just as important as transforming the curriculum.
The complementary initiative at ROC Mondriaan’s The Hague campus — the Voedselplein (Food Square) — takes this principle further, inviting small groups of students from the vocational Entree pathway (introductory level) to work directly in a garden linked to the school. Through hands-on work in the schoolyard, students encounter the realities of food production: the dirt, the effort, the seasons, and the satisfaction of growing something. The educator’s role is to connect what students experience outside with reflective assignments in the classroom — building a bridge between doing and understanding.
Challenges and Relevance
The green schoolyard project has not been without friction: some teachers, practically minded, miss the parking spaces. This small resistance is a reminder that sustainability transitions within institutions require cultural as well as physical change. The Voedselplein has its own challenge — getting students comfortable with getting dirty — but the organisers see this as part of the learning itself: confronting discomfort and discovering that engagement with nature is both manageable and rewarding.
Both initiatives connect to SDG 15 (Life on Land) and exemplify how formal educational settings can create non-formal sustainability learning through environmental design and hands-on practice.
Website: rocmondriaan.nl
Contact: r.klaver@rocmondriaan.nl
