Correlation between school gardens and nutrition education for middle school students

Urban Farm DB summary

A student research presentation on middle school students in the United States (2021) discusses the correlation between school gardens and nutrition education, asking whether students relying on school lunches actually benefit from the nutrition standards those lunches must meet. It argues that a school garden would let students learn to grow their own food, encounter new foods, and interactively learn how different foods affect health, with garden produce potentially incorporated into cafeteria lunches. Citing existing evidence that greater access to fruits and vegetables increases consumption and that school lunches generate substantial food waste, it suggests that nutrition education and exposure to new foods through a school garden could reduce that waste; the presentation itself does not report original measured data directly testing the garden-nutrition education correlation.