Effectiveness of Food Sustainability Education among Grade School Students

Urban Farm DB summary

A study examined the effectiveness of a four-week interactive food sustainability education program covering local foods, gardening, recycling, and world hunger, delivered to 85 elementary-age students at two schools in southern Illinois. Using a within-subjects repeated-measures design with pre- and post-program surveys analyzed in PASW (Version 18.0) and a significance level of p<0.10 given the exploratory design, the program was found most effective with fourth graders, who showed significant change across all four measured areas: understanding world hunger, effects on their surroundings, understanding of community supported agriculture (CSA), and awareness of stores carrying more local foods. Eighth graders showed significant change in two areas (effects on their surroundings and CSA understanding), and sixth graders showed significantly higher scores only in CSA understanding. The paper reports positive results for the youngest age group while flagging the more limited results among sixth and eighth graders as warranting further research.