Photo: Freudenberg Castle

Freudenberg Castle in Wiesbaden has been enriching the region as an unusual educational venue for over 30 years. With its "Field of Experience for the Development of the Senses and Thinking", it invites visitors young and old alike to explore the old estate and the extensive castle park: on the barefoot path, at the water playground or at various touch, sound and scent stations. With the support of SAGST, another offer was launched in spring 2025: around 250 pupils from ten classes at Schelmengraben Primary School and Alexej von Jawlensky Integrated Comprehensive School are invited to use the castle park as an extension of their classrooms for a year and a half.

The new "Green Classroom" has been set up right on the edge of the forest, with a view of wildflower meadows and a small vegetable garden. The heated, cozy group room and a construction trailer serve as the basis for intensive workshop days, during which the pupils immerse themselves in natural processes for four hours: they experience the diverse fauna and flora of the park, gain an insight into the fascinating world of bees or plant trees. The focus is less on a fixed curriculum and more on developing their own projects - always supported by two experienced employees from the experience field. In addition to three workshops per school semester, the participating classes are given free access to the park grounds so that they can continue to explore them independently with their teachers in the meantime.

Awakening the spirit of research, experiencing self-efficacy

"With this new educational format, the association is also reaching children from the immediate vicinity of the castle who have rarely or never come into contact with the field of experience - not least due to financial or social barriers," says Elke Rahmann, project manager at SAGST. "Repeated visits to the castle park are fun, arouse curiosity and can provide valuable impetus for personal development." The pilot project, which will initially run for three school semesters, will be supervised and evaluated by educational researcher Matthias Witte. The professor at the Institute of Educational Sciences at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz has been researching and publishing on the concept of "outdoor schools" for more than 15 years. In the Freudenberg project, he is particularly interested in the interactions between pedagogical practice and existing concepts of education for sustainable development. One focus is therefore on the question of what effects regular, self-designed nature experiences have on young people's understanding of the environment.