Research & reports

Isami Kinoshita, Jin Yoshikawa · Journal of the City Planning Institute of Japan · Japan

This study identified the meaning and role of edible landscapes in urban residential areas by comparing three districts in Japan: Nezu, Taishido, and Kokubunji-shinmachi. Through observation, interviews, and questionnaires, five common meanings and roles were found, including providing fresh food, fostering memories, promoting communication, preserving folk customs, and encouraging ecological thinking despite maintenance challenges.

Martha S. Burns, Nicholas J. Certo, Keith Storey · Education and training in mental retardation and developmental disabilities · Global

This quantitative study explored regular education students' attitudinal changes towards students with severe disabilities through inclusive service learning projects. The study involved a first intervention group of 12 volunteers who created a community garden with 8 students with severe disabilities, and a second intervention group of 12 Outdoor Education students who assisted 8 students with severe disabilities at a Special Olympics event. An attitudinal questionnaire was administered before and after the projects, and a control group was also included, but the abstract does not report the findings.

Tina M. Waliczek, Jayne M. Zajicek · Journal of Environmental Horticulture · United States

Project GREEN, a school garden program, was integrated into seven elementary and junior high schools in Kansas and Texas to evaluate its impact on students' environmental attitudes. Students' environmental attitudes were significantly more positive after participating, with post-test mean scores 0.26 points higher than pre-test scores. Demographic analysis showed that female, Caucasian, and rural students exhibited more positive environmental attitudes compared to other groups.

Sarah Lineberger, J.M. Zajicek · HortScience · Global

A study (HortScience, 1999) developed a teacher curriculum guide, "Nutrition in the Garden," combining horticulture and nutrition lessons, and tested its effect on children's food preferences and eating behaviors using a pretest/posttest attitude instrument developed by Tom Baranowski and a 24-hour food recall journal. The abstract states that results examine the effects of school gardens on nutritional attitudes and behaviors but does not report specific outcome figures.

ETC Agriculture · CGSPace A Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research) · Global

A resource guide compiling information on people and organizations with expertise relevant to formulating and implementing urban agriculture policies, plans and projects.

Sonja M. Skelly, Jennifer Bradley · HortScience · United States (Florida)

In Spring 1998, the University of Florida hosted a children's garden competition for approximately 100 elementary schools across Florida. The competition required schools to establish or use an existing garden and for teachers to integrate it into classroom instruction. A random sample of 500 students from participating schools completed an environmental attitude survey at the beginning and end of the competition, and teachers also completed a survey on garden use and its effect on students.

Adrienne Martin, B. Pound · · South Africa

This report describes a visit to South Africa to facilitate a participatory workshop for an urban agriculture project in Sobantu Village, KwaZulu-Natal. The visit's objectives were to identify organizational, social, technical, and financial issues and necessary activities to initiate an urban agriculture project with the Sobantu community, the Institute for Natural Resources (INR), and Department of Agriculture staff. Discussions also included a draft manual on FSR/FPR being prepared by NRI/INR.

Laura Stocker, Kate Barnett · Local Environment · Australia (Western Australia)

This paper reviews the types and roles of community gardens, which are managed by community members and contribute to Local Agenda 21 planning and sustainable communities. It presents a case study of a community garden in Western Australia, analyzing lessons learned and the potential contributions of such gardens to physical, ecological, sociocultural, and economic sustainability. Community gardens produce fresh organic food, create community spaces, and disseminate community science.

Tina M. Waliczek, R. Daniel Lineberger, J.M. Zajicek · HortScience · Global

An online survey was conducted on the KinderGARDEN Web page to investigate children's perceptions of gardening benefits. Children responded via email, reporting on their gardening experiences, learning, and perceived advantages. Results indicated that children positively valued gardening for recreation, and also mentioned educational, environmental, aesthetic, social, and economic benefits. Specifically, 81% felt they learned about the environment, 54% about plants, 31% cited recreation/fun, and 15% mentioned socialization with friends and family.

庄菊明, 付燕凤, 沈建英, 高贵临 · 高等农业教育 · China (Shanghai)

This paper explores new ideas in Shanghai's urban agriculture higher education, adapting to the trend of agricultural transformation and upgrading in Shanghai, and learning from Deng Xiaoping Theory. It establishes views on urban agriculture, integrated agriculture, multifunctional agriculture, and highly intelligent agriculture, aiming to create a new situation where general, vocational, and adult higher education advance in parallel and develop coordinately, striving for new breakthroughs in cultivating high-quality and distinctive agricultural science and technology talents.

Parajas Il · PubMed · Global

A 3-year study in two elementary schools investigated the caries preventive effect of wild tea (tsaang-gubat) among schoolchildren. The experimental group drank one cup of tea daily for 17 months, prepared from fresh school garden leaves. Results indicated that wild tea is an effective caries preventive agent, showing a 75.67% decrease in caries incidence, though an increase in the third year was attributed to irregular consumption and reduced tea fluoride content.

Lucy Bradley, Jean C. Stutz · HortTechnology · United States

The University of Arizona Cooperative Extension's home horticulture World Wide Web site for Maricopa County, "Environmentally responsible gardening and landscaping in the low desert," delivers research-based, regionally appropriate public information. It provides self-service access to prepared text and high-quality images that could not be distributed economically through traditional print methods, plus interactive functionality for submitting questions.

Dream of Wild Health · Dream of Wild Health · United States

Dream of Wild Health (DWH), founded in 1998 (its predecessor Peta Wakan Tipi began in 1986), is a Native-led nonprofit. On its 30-acre farm in Hugo, Minnesota, it runs Indigenous seed-saving, traditional food and youth education programmes, and operates an Indigenous food network from its Minneapolis office. In 2022 the farm produced 13.5 tons of food; as of 2024 it had 20 full-time staff and had planted 1,000 trees since 2022.

N.K. Lownds · HortScience · Global

This article describes a case where a university landscape horticulture professor, a landscape design class, a landscape construction class, elementary school teachers, and a principal collaborated to create school teaching gardens. University students engaged in a problem-solving project from the perspective of elementary school children, deepening their own understanding by explaining horticulture. This process was a genuine learning experience for all university students, elementary teachers, and students, with dynamic idea sharing throughout the design and construction.

Brian Trelstad · Landscape Journal · United States

This paper explores the rise and decline of the school garden movement in the United States from 1891 to 1920. School gardens were established as a national phenomenon intertwining Progressive governance, the Back to Nature Movement, and early education reform. The paper seeks to explain the sudden demise of school gardens after 1920 by examining changes in American urban life and the nature of the professions that promoted them.

J. Lambie, W.T. Osborn, A. Dominski · OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) · United States (Florida)

The Florida House Foundation, Inc. (FHF), a non-profit regional economic incubator, developed a demonstration house and yard in Sarasota County, Florida, in partnership with the Cooperative Extension Service. This model home, designed to appeal to consumers and be marketable by the construction industry, aimed to stimulate interest in solar and resource-efficient technologies. It incorporated active and passive design, solar photovoltaic and water heating systems, daylighting, cisterns, gray water, and native edible landscaping.

Serr, Elisabeth N · CommonKnowledge Research Repository (Pacific University Oregon) · United States (Eugene)

This qualitative research project focused on school garden projects in the Eugene, Oregon area, exploring how teachers integrate classroom curriculum in the garden. Information was gathered through interviews, primarily with elementary teachers, and visits to school gardens. The research aims to answer questions regarding the pervasiveness of gardening projects, how schools can collaborate with communities to form garden projects, and how teachers can integrate a garden project with class curriculum.

Tina M. Waliczek, J.M. Zajicek · HortScience · United States

This study initiated an environmental education garden program, "The Green Classroom," in eight schools across the Midwest and Texas, involving approximately 1000 third- through eighth-grade students. The program aimed to integrate garden activities into classroom lessons to reinforce curriculum. Researchers administered pre- and post-tests, including a psychological inventory and an environmental attitude survey, to examine the relationship between garden program participation and students' self-esteem, interpersonal relationships, attitude toward school, and environmental attitudes.

Sandra A. Balch, D. L. Auld · HortScience · Global

This article discusses methods for communicating composting information to the public, noting that many potential composters lack expertise, information, and support. It finds that hands-on instruction and active involvement in ongoing programs, as well as integration into established programs like community gardens, are effective methods for conveying composting information.

Laura L. Lawson · eScholarship (California Digital Library) · United States (California)

A 1995 article on the "BYA Community Garden Patch," a community garden started in 1993 by Berkeley Youth Alternatives (BYA) on a half-acre former railroad right-of-way in West Berkeley, California, US. The garden — which includes a children's garden, demonstration garden, outdoor classroom, compost area, and entrepreneurial youth garden — was planned through bilingual design workshops involving teens, their parents, neighbors, BYA board members, and city officials. BYA employs and trains 10 teens in park landscape maintenance at the site.

Laura Lawson, Marcia J. McNally · · United States (California)

A paper proposing new methods for layering utility and maximizing benefit to teens and the community by including teens' needs in the planning and maintenance of urban open space. It discusses two programs run by Berkeley Youth Alternatives (BYA)—the BYA Youth Employment Landscape Program and the BYA Community Garden Patch—that attract youth through employment, providing at-risk teens with income, job training, safe after-school activity, and self-esteem, presenting program descriptions and evaluation to inform future similar projects.

William C. Olien, Joe G. Harper, Katherine Ashe · HortScience · United States

A Teaching Fruit-Garden Project paired Horticulture and Agricultural Education classes at a US university (1995) to build teaching materials for college courses, area K-12 schools, and community members interested in fruit and edible landscaping, organized around team coordination, writing across the curriculum, and hands-on learning. The horticulture course produced a proposal for low-maintenance, sustainable fruit production including species and cultivar choices, a management plan, and a preliminary site plan; the agriculture education course produced self-contained teaching modules with sample lesson plans for K-12 teachers. Students reported liking the cross-class collaboration and the sense that their work served the community.

Ishwarbhai C. Patel · HortTechnology · United States

The Rutgers Urban Gardening (RUG) program in the United States fosters cultural diversity by employing six ethnic minority workers and reaching over 30 ethnic groups through various educational programs. It creates an environment where people can connect, share concerns, and solve problems, bridging social, economic, cultural, and racial barriers.

William T. Hlubik, Michael W. Hamm · HortScience · United States

A 1994 conference presentation abstract (HortScience) describing the need for a comprehensive model to measure the impact of community gardening on the physical, nutritional and sociological structures of at-risk urban communities in the United States, and reporting on the stepwise development and implementation of an evaluation tool built to address that need. Developed in partnership with horticultural researchers, urban gardeners, dietitians and sociologists, the tool integrates established evaluative methods with new measurement techniques into a statistical survey. Preliminary findings from the first year of survey administration were to be shared at the presentation, but no specific results are given in the abstract itself.

Joyce Anstey · Environmental Conservation · United Kingdom (London)

An abstract is not available for this content.