---
title: "Questions to the Soil — Living Experience Guides: Introduction"
subtitle: "How to Use the Five Target-Group Guides — Appendix A"
author: "Michel Garand"
date: "February 2026"
version: "1.2"
lang: en
license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
project: "Erdpuls OER Collection"
document: "00 — Introduction Guide"
---

# Questions to the Soil — Living Experience Guides

## Introduction and Overview

**Erdpuls — Living Laboratory & Makerspace Garden**

**Version**: 1.2
**Date**: February 2026

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## Changelog

| Version | Date | Changes |
|---------|---------------|----------------------------------------------|
| 1.2 | February 2026 | BNE compliance update: measurable learning objectives added to all five guide Overview tables (Area 1.2); sustainability dimensions mapped per guide (Area 2.1.1); SDG links with justification added per guide (Area 2.1.3); methodological foundations with citations added per guide (Area 3.2.2/3.2.3); facilitator qualification requirements added to all Facilitator Notes sections (Areas 6.1.1/6.1.2); pre-workshop preparation reference (3.3.1) and post-workshop follow-up resources (3.3.3) added to all Facilitator Notes; BNE Criteria Coverage Reference table added to introduction |
| 1.1 | February 2026 | Institution name updated; license footer added; version updated for OER publication |
| 1.0 | October 2025 | Initial release |

---

## How to Use These Guides

This collection contains five complete living experience guides, each adapting the "Questions to the Soil" phenomenological protocol (Appendix A of the Pattern Discovery Toolkit) to a specific target group. Each guide is designed to stand alone — a facilitator can print the relevant guide and use it directly in the field.

The five guides share a common core (the 13 Questions, plus a 14th auditory enrichment at Question 8b), but differ substantially in language register, duration, pedagogical framing, sensory activities, sensor integration, citizen science outputs, and follow-up actions. The differences are not simplifications or complications of a "standard" version — each guide is a complete, coherent experience designed for how its particular participants perceive, learn, and relate to soil.

**The Proxemic Layer:** Each guide includes proxemic facilitation notes — spatial design guidance drawing on Edward T. Hall's theory of proxemics (*The Hidden Dimension*, 1966). These notes address how physical distance, sensory channel activation, spatial arrangement (sociopetal vs. sociofugal), and vertical positioning shape learning quality. The soil protocol is the most proxemically intense activity in the entire Pattern Discovery Toolkit: it systematically moves participants into intimate proxemic distance (0–45 cm) with a non-human entity, activating all five sensory channels (touch, smell, thermal, auditory, visual). Understanding this proxemic architecture helps facilitators recognize why certain moments produce extraordinary engagement and how to sustain that quality across the full workshop. For the complete proxemic framework, see the *Proxemic Integration* companion document.

**The five guides:**

**Guide 1:** Children and Youth (Kinder und Jugendliche) — Ages 8–18, school classes
**Guide 2:** Adults and Families (Erwachsene und Familien) — Open community format
**Guide 3:** Elders and Intergenerational Groups (Ältere Menschen) — Knowledge-holders as co-teachers
**Guide 4:** Artists and Researchers (Künstler\*innen und Forscher\*innen) — Residency-depth immersion
**Guide 5:** Cross-Border Groups (Grenzregion DE/PL) — Trilingual, intercultural

Each guide follows a consistent structure for easy facilitator reference:

- Overview (who, what, why, how long)
- Preparation and Materials
- Welcome and Framing
- The Experience (adapted 13 Questions)
- Sensor Dialogue
- Citizen Science Output
- Closing and Reflection
- Follow-Up and Continuation
- Token Economy Integration
- Facilitator Notes
- Seasonal Variations
- Risk and Safety Considerations
- Proxemic Design Notes (spatial arrangement, sensory channels, facilitation positioning)

---

### BNE Criteria Coverage Reference (Areas 1–7, Brandenburg Qualitätskatalog)

This document series addresses the **Angebotsqualität** sections of the Brandenburg BNE Quality Catalog (*Qualitätskatalog für außerschulische Anbieterinnen und Anbieter von Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung (BNE) im Land Brandenburg*, MLUK Brandenburg, April 2023). The table below maps each guide to the BNE quality areas it primarily demonstrates, to assist facilitators, evaluators, and certification reviewers. For the full program-level criterion-by-criterion alignment, see the *BNE-Bewertung und Leitbild* document and the *Pattern Discovery Toolkit* Appendix D.

| Guide | Target Group | Primary BNE Areas | Key Criteria |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Children & Youth | 1, 2, 3, 4 | 1.1.1 (Lebenswelt: soil as daily-life ground beneath school-age feet); 1.2 (4 measurable learning objectives); 2.1.1 (all four sustainability dimensions); 2.1.3 (SDG 4, 13, 15); 3.1 (experiential, activating, reflective); 4.1.3 (interdisciplinary); 4.3.3 (empathy for soil organisms) |
| 2 | Adults & Families | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 | 1.2 (4 measurable behavioral outcomes); 2.1.1 (four dimensions); 3.1.5 (reflektiert via values-action gap); 4.3.1 (self-reflection via Soil Explorer Notebook); 5.2.1 (notebook as praxis reflection data) |
| 3 | Elders & Intergenerational | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 | 2.2 (Perspektivenvielfalt: historical-ecological comparison across eras); 3.1.5 (reflektiert via Elder Memory Prompts); 4.1.2 (foresight: past→present→future trajectory); 5.2 (oral soil history as longitudinal evaluation data) |
| 4 | Artists & Researchers | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 | 1.2 (research-depth measurable outcomes); 3.2.2/3.2.3 (Goethean and longitudinal methodological foundations with citations); 4.1 (interdisciplinary competency via cross-method integration); 5.1–5.2 (residency output as quality development contribution) |
| 5 | Cross-Border (DE/PL) | 1, 2, 3, 5 | 1.1.1 (Lebenswelt: shared glacial landscape); 2.1.1 (four dimensions across national frameworks); 2.2 (Perspektivenvielfalt: two national traditions, three languages); 5.3 (Kooperation: cross-border citizen science network design) |

*Minimum requirements of the Brandenburg Qualitätskatalog are addressed collectively across all five guides and the wider Erdpuls program. No individual guide is required to meet all criteria independently — these are workshop guides, not standalone educational programs.*

---

## Cross-Guide Reference: How the Five Guides Relate

The five guides are designed to work independently, but they also form a system. The richest outcomes emerge when the same soil patches are visited by multiple target groups across a year:

- **Spring:** School class (Guide 1) visits and establishes baseline observations with fresh eyes and high energy.
- **Early Summer:** Adults and families (Guide 2) deepen with practical garden knowledge and begin home-garden comparison.
- **Midsummer:** Artist/researcher in residence (Guide 4) begins multi-week daily practice, producing the deepest sustained observation.
- **Autumn:** Intergenerational group (Guide 3) layers elder memory over the accumulated data from spring and summer.
- **Late Autumn:** Cross-border group (Guide 5) extends the observation across the political boundary, contextualizing the campus soil within the larger bioregion.
- **Winter:** All data synthesized. Pattern cards written. The pattern language of this soil begins to take shape.

This annual cycle mirrors the Erdpuls seasonal rhythm (Frühling: Pflanzen und Planen. Sommer: Wachsen und Sammeln. Herbst: Verarbeiten und Bewahren. Winter: Reparieren und Reflektieren) and produces a cumulative body of knowledge that no single visit, by any single group, could generate.

**Proxemic accumulation across the year:** When multiple target groups visit the same soil patches across a year, the proxemic depth of the community's relationship with those patches accumulates. The children's energetic intimate encounter (spring) is followed by the adults' reflective personal encounter (summer), deepened by the resident's sustained daily intimacy (midsummer), layered with the elder's temporal proxemic memory (autumn), and extended across a cultural boundary by the cross-border group (late autumn). By winter synthesis, the soil patches have been encountered at intimate distance by dozens of people across all five target groups, through multiple sensory channels, across multiple seasons. The pattern cards produced in the winter synthesis represent knowledge that was generated through this accumulated proxemic contact — not through research conducted at public distance, but through repeated, multi-sensory, embodied engagement at intimate and personal distance with specific ground.

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## License and Attribution

© 2025–2026 Michel Garand | Erdpuls — Center for Sustainability Literacy, Citizen Science & Reciprocal Economics

Licensed under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

You are free to share and adapt this material for any purpose, including commercially, provided you give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, indicate if changes were made, and distribute any adaptations under the same license.

All software components referenced in this document are licensed under the [GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL-3.0)](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html)

*This document and its translations were developed with assistance from Claude (Anthropic PBC). All strategic decisions, philosophical positions, and project commitments are those of the author.*

**Contact:** erdpuls@ubec.network · [https://erdpuls.ubec.network](https://erdpuls.ubec.network)

*Alle Dokumente und ihre Übersetzungen / All documents and their translations.*
*February 2026*