Research & reports

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.

Bishwapriya Sanyal · Food and Nutrition Bulletin · Zambia (Lusaka)

Urban agriculture in Lusaka, Zambia, is an innovative response by the urban poor facing insufficient income. Low-income households view urban cultivation as a long-term investment, requiring permanent urban residence (7-11 years) and access to land to ensure a return. Variations in cultivation patterns result from relative differences in land access and the need to maximize the return on domestic labor time.

Ledogar Rj · PubMed · Zambia (Lusaka)

In 1978, a pilot project was initiated in Lusaka, Zambia, by UNICEF and The American Friends Service Committee to expand urban agriculture. This project aims to establish kitchen gardens on residential plots, cultivate road reserves and green belts, utilize idle land during the rainy season, raise small livestock, promote cooperative cultivation of small holdings in the urban periphery by low-income residents, and eventually resettle some urban residents on farms. The goal is for the service to be self-supporting by 1980.

John Ihlder · National Municipal Review · United States (New York City)

This 1914 item is a short notice of Robert Ellis Thompson's book 'The History of the Delling-House and Its Future,' priced at $1.00, appended to a summary of New York public-school activities including normal schools, kindergartens, evening and trade schools, vacation schools, playgrounds, school gardens, music, drawing, manual training, household arts, physical training, medical inspection, school nurses, classes for disabled children, visiting teachers and school lunches.

Flora J. Cooke, Elsie A. Wygant, Lorley Ada Ashléman · The Elementary School Teacher and Course of Study · United States

A 1902 account of a pedagogical activity in which children in the School of Education planted part of a garden for children attending the summer model school, who would then pickle, can or otherwise preserve the crops and maintain a window box of blooming plants left for the returning students. The article describes how the activity integrated manual training (building boxes and trellises), science (germination experiments, soil observation), number work (estimating costs, measuring), reading, and expression (recording growth through painting, writing and modeling) into an instructional plan.