Research & reports

M. Ichwan, Ameilia Zuliyanti Siregar, E Yusni, Tulus Ikhsan Nasution · ABDIMAS UNWAHAS · Indonesia

As a community-service program run from August to December 2020 at Universitas Sumatera Utara (USU), Indonesia, this project set up a waste management unit called SIMALIM, combining smart urban farming methods, at USU's waste disposal site and the rooftop garden of its integrated laboratory, to handle organic waste from campus canteens and nearby residents. It combined black soldier fly (BSF) larvae rearing, eco-enzyme production, and aquaponics (catfish/gabus, tilapia/nila and lele species alongside organic vegetables), training students to participate as eco-campus ambassadors and members of USU's UI GreenMetric team. The project is framed as a model for generating income-producing products from proper organic waste management and improving USU's UI GreenMetric ranking.

Paulo Germán García Murillo, Laura Belkis Parada Romero, Juana Yadira Martín Perico, Julio Ernesto Rojas Mesa, Bernardo Garibello Suan · · Colombia (Bogotá)

This paper reports a research project on urban agriculture aimed at fostering scientific citizenship, carried out with fifth-grade students and teachers at the El Carmelo school in Teusaquillo, Bogota, Colombia. Focused on raising awareness of STEAM (environmental, technological, pedagogical and artistic) competencies, it designed two at-home experimental practices using easily obtained cargamanto bean seeds, addressing sustainability, STEAM and learning competencies while surfacing issues such as food security, nutritional culture, a culture of prototyping and strengthened scientific citizenship, and reports that the pandemic unexpectedly extended the project's reach from students to their families.

Hanna Weber, David D. Loschelder, Daniel J. Lang, Arnim Wiek · Journal of Marketing Management · Germany

An intervention study with 136 consumers, recruited at a fair for sustainable products and lifestyles in Germany, compared three experiential marketing interventions—a promotional video, an in-person presentation, and a mindful tasting experience—designed to connect consumers with the producers of Teikei Coffee, an international Community Supported Agriculture coffee partnership. All three interventions, to varying degrees, created connections between consumers and producers and thereby fostered sustainable consumption behaviour.

Triyono Triyono, Siti Aisyah, Firman Mansir · Prosiding Seminar Nasional Program Pengabdian Masyarakat · Indonesia

This community-outreach report describes a project at Baitunnafi Mosque in Kampung Brajan, Tamantirto village (Kasihan district, Bantul regency), a fast-growing suburban area on the outskirts of Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The mosque's roughly 1,500 m² grounds included about 500 m² of unused vacant land. The project involved coordination and religious-education sessions on using land for vegetable and fish cultivation as a healthy family food source, vegetable-growing training, and a demonstration of tarpaulin-pond technology for catfish farming. The mosque congregation, the target group, participated enthusiastically across the activity stages; the report states the urban farming activity addressed environmental problems while increasing the food supply and nutrition available to the congregation and surrounding community.

Anne Forbes, Vinesh Chandra, Linda Pfeiffer, Rachel Sheffield · Cambridge University Press eBooks · Global

This chapter is part of a textbook on STEM education in primary schools that introduces pre-service teachers to the theory, skills, and practice of teaching STEM through a project-based learning approach, integrating STEM elements with the Australian Curriculum via a school garden project case study. Popular STEM topic areas — health, shelter, and space — are explored through age-appropriate, tested project examples that illustrate how STEM ideas translate into classroom practice, connecting current STEM education research to teaching practice through discussion of assessment, learning spaces, community, and the future of STEM.

Dwiyana Anela Kurniasari, Siti Alimah, Agus Subhan Prasetyo, Nur Hafif · Prosiding Seminar Nasional Gender & Inklusi Sosial UWP · Indonesia

A study analyzed participation levels among PKK (Family Welfare and Empowerment) members in RT05/RW06 of the Balasklumprik area in Wiyung district, Surabaya, Indonesia, in a hydroponics training program conducted by the Agribusiness Study Program of Universitas Wijaya Putra in July 2020. Participation rates were 100% for seedling-raising training, 80% for hydroponic nutrition training, 86.67% success in the first pakcoy harvest, and 73.33% of members continued hydroponic cultivation after the training; descriptive analysis concluded that PKK members participated well in each activity of the hydroponics program.

Most. Tania Akter, Mohammad Mahbub Islam, Parvin Akter Bithy, Suraya Parvin, Md. Ehtasham Bari · Asian Journal of Biology · Bangladesh

A factorial trial at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University's rooftop garden in Dhaka, Bangladesh (October 2017-March 2018) tested two growing structures (plastic pot, earthen pot) and six growing media in a completely randomized design with four replications. Plastic pots produced the most flower clusters, flowers, fruit length and fruit breadth per plant, with maximum yield of 1.69 kg/plant. Medium M5 (80% soil + 10% cowdung + 10% vermicompost + inorganic fertilizer) gave the highest yield at 2.17 kg/plant, and the plastic pot with M5 combination reached 2.15 kg/plant.

Kit Prendergast, Amelie M. Vanderstock, Heather Neilly, Catherine E. Ross, Vanessa Pirotta, Patrick Tegart · Austral Ecology · Australia

A reflection on a citizen science project in which five early-career and PhD female researchers guided school-age children across five schools to build artificial flowers, install them on school ovals, and record over repeated 10-minute observations how flower colour (yellow vs. blue) and configuration (isolated, clumped adjacent, clumped mixed-colour, clumped single-colour) affected the number and taxa of visiting insects. The project achieved a low-cost, engaging format and exposure to female STEM role models, but the authors report constraints including having to run it in a season made suboptimal by fixed school curricula, confounding of results caused by the children's own observations, and an inability to verify the collected data.

Giovanni Delnevo, Roberto Girau, Chiara Ceccarini, Catia Prandi · IEEE Internet of Things Journal · Global

This study combines Social Internet of Things sensing (solar radiation, humidity, air temperature, soil moisture) and communication, crowdsourced image collection and classification, and deep learning for plant disease detection, engaging farmers and community garden owners and experts, to build a system that predicts whether a plant will develop a disease with a given degree of precision. It presents the architecture, deep learning model, and a responsive web app, reporting experimental evaluations and usability/engagement tests alongside limitations and future work.

Paulo Germán García Murillo, Laura Belkis Parada Romero, Juana Yaira Martín Perico · · Colombia

In Bogotá's Teusaquillo locality, Colombia, an urban agriculture project was carried out in 2021 with teachers and fifth-grade students at Colegio El Carmelo during the pandemic, aiming to build awareness of STEAM competencies (environmental, technological, pedagogical, artistic). Two home-based experimental practices were designed using cargamanto bean seeds, chosen for being easy to obtain during food-supply crises, covering sustainability, STEAM and learning competencies. The pandemic period led the project to involve students' families as well as the students themselves, and the resulting reflections on food security, nutritional culture, prototyping culture and scientific citizenship are compiled as a record of the educational practice.

Anne Forbes, Vinesh Chandra, Linda Pfeiffer, Rachel Sheffield · QUT ePrints (Queensland University of Technology) · Australia

A textbook for pre-service teachers in Australia introducing STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) education through project-based learning, using a school-garden case study to integrate topics such as health, shelter and space into the Australian Curriculum across year levels F-6. It covers assessment, learning spaces, community engagement and the future of STEM education, and includes classroom activities, short-answer questions and downloadable templates. It is a teaching text, not an empirical study.

M B Bayer, Susanne Neugart, Tobias Pöhnl · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Global

This study compared kale (Brassica oleracea var. sabellica L.) grown in all four cardinal directions of a residential building, including indoor cultivation behind UV-filtering glass windows. Total carotenoid concentration benefited from sun-exposed growing locations, including the indoor glass condition, while concentrations of nutritionally important lutein did not differ among locations despite their differing abiotic stress conditions (sun exposure, temperature, water). Total phenolic concentration profited most from direct sunlight but was severely reduced behind glass windows. Satisfying growth rates were achieved under all tested conditions.

Anne Forbes, Vinesh Chandra, Linda Pfeiffer, Rachel Sheffield · Cambridge University Press eBooks · Global

This is a chapter from an Australian STEM education textbook for pre-service primary teachers, introducing the theory, skills and practice of teaching STEM through project-based learning. It integrates STEM elements (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) with the Australian Curriculum via a school garden project case study, exploring topic areas such as health, shelter and space through age-appropriate project examples, and connects discussion of assessment, learning spaces, community and STEM futures to classroom teaching practice.

In-Kyoung Hong, Hyung-Kwon Yun, Young-Bin Jung, Sang-Mi Lee, Choon-soo Lee · Journal of people, plants, and environment · South Korea

A contactless online survey of 1,010 parents of elementary, middle, and high school students across Korea's five major districts, conducted October 22-26, 2020 (5 days) by a Korean survey agency (M), analyzing the data with SPSS for Windows 25.0 and Excel. Respondents averaged 1.83 (children per household), and 52.8% were male. 55.3% were aware of education services using school gardens, and 27.9% had experienced such a service. Overall, 79% considered the service necessary; among parents who had experienced it, 91.8% said it was necessary. Of all respondents, 54.9% were willing to pay for school garden costs; when income tax was used as the payment method, the average willingness to pay was 13,193 KRW, equivalent to a 2.02% tax rate. Parents who had experienced the service showed higher perceived need and willingness to pay than those who had not, but their actual stated amount or tax rate was lower because they knew how the program was actually run.

Sangmi Lee, Hyung Kwon Yun, Young-Bin Jung, In-Kyoung Hong · Journal of people, plants, and environment · South Korea

Using South Korea's public service design process (Ministry of the Interior and Safety, 2019) — comprising understanding, discovering needs, defining problems, and developing ideas — researchers analyzed how to manage and operate "urban agricultural parks," a park category established under the 2013 revision of the Act on Urban Parks, Green Areas, Etc. The process generated four idea types for revitalizing these parks: providing information users want, enabling user participation in design, serving as a venue for local communities, and functioning as spaces for health and rest, concluding that such parks need more systematic, diverse operating systems tied to local community revitalization rather than the passive, unified space patterns of conventional urban parks.

Tatiana de Oliveira Sousa, João Aparecido Bazzoli, Cecília Delgado · Estudos Geográficos Revista Eletrônica de Geografia · Brazil

An exploratory study examined an urban gardening project run by the municipal government of Palmas, capital of Tocantins state, Brazil, analyzing challenges in setup and maintenance, administrative difficulties in production and distribution, and the socioeconomic profile of participating families. Surveying the gardeners' profiles and practices, the study found that the urban gardens promoted social inclusion of participating families, particularly low-income, unemployed, elderly, and women gardeners.

Melanie Jans-Singh, Rebecca Ward, Ruchi Choudhary · Journal of Building Performance Simulation · United Kingdom

A study addressing the lack of quantification of combined building-integrated greenhouse performance developed a building energy simulation (BES) of an archetype school building in EnergyPlus, co-simulated with a validated greenhouse energy simulator (GES), for school buildings in London, UK. Different greenhouse-building coupling configurations were evaluated via sensitivity analysis and a parametric study to estimate potential crop growth, heat recovery, and reduction in ventilation demand. A 250 m2 greenhouse on the top floor of the school could produce 6 t of lettuce with half the energy demand of an equivalent standalone greenhouse. Trade-offs among increased humidity, yields, and energy efficiency show that modeling is needed to ensure optimal designs.

TP Modibedi, MMS Maake, MR Masekoameng, SS Tekana, Oluwaseun Samuel Oduniyi · African Journal of Food Agriculture Nutrition and Development · South Africa

This quantitative study surveyed vegetable consumption patterns among 254 randomly sampled urban farmers from 30 community gardens (418 registered farmers) across six large townships in Emfuleni Local Municipality, Gauteng province, South Africa. Data were collected via face-to-face semi-structured questionnaires using 24-hour dietary recall and analyzed with SPSS version 23 using descriptive statistics and ordered logistic regression. 96.1% of farmers consumed vegetables as a relish and 93.3% as salad, most often at dinner because farmers were typically present in the gardens during the day. Of 10 independent variables tested, only age group, education level, and main income source showed a statistically significant positive association with consumption patterns. The study recommends incorporating vegetables into all three daily meals and providing education on the importance of vegetable consumption.

Midori ASAOKA · Japanese Journal of Environmental Education · United States (California)

This paper traces the history of the Life Lab program in Santa Cruz, California, United States, and re-evaluates it from a sustainability education perspective. Life Lab, a non-profit established in 1979, grew out of "Nature Study" in an elementary school garden into a science-based environmental and sustainability education program emphasizing pupil-centered, experiential learning and critical thinking to build connection to the Earth; participants learn ecological soundness, key agroecology concepts, and relationships among insects, flowers, vegetables, other foods, and humans. The paper discusses farmers' markets, community-supported agriculture (CSA), and the Community Agroecology Network (CAN) in the Santa Cruz area as examples of organic and agroecological movements, arguing that direct producer-consumer relationships foster alternatives to the global corporate market, and proposes introducing sustainability education into Japanese food and agriculture education by building school gardens.

Loren Alcorn · Proceedings of Student Research and Creative Inquiry Day · United States

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.

Muhammad Taqiyudin Majid, Nurul Aini · Jurnal Produksi Tanaman · Indonesia

Although white radish (Raphanus sativus L.) can be cultivated throughout Indonesia, it is grown in only a few regions; this study examined expanding cultivation via urban farming by testing the interaction between polybag size and planting media composition on growth and yield. Conducted from March to April 2020 in a greenhouse at the Faculty of Agriculture, Universitas Brawijaya, Malang, the study used a factorial randomized group design with two factors and three replications: polybag size (30×15 cm = U1, 35×17.5 cm = U2, 40×20 cm = U3) and cocopeat:compost:sand ratio (1:1:1 = K1, 1:3:1 = K2, 1:1:3 = K3, 3:1:1 = K4). Results showed the appropriate media composition depended on polybag size: the 30×15 cm and 35×17.5 cm polybags produced the highest fresh weight with a cocopeat:compost:sand ratio of 3:1:1, while the 40×20 cm polybag with a 1:1:1 ratio increased the fresh weight of radish tubers.

Tatiane de Jesus Marques Souza, Mamen Cuéllar Padilla · RACO (Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert) (Consorci de Serveis Universitaris de Catalunya) · Spain

Food crises directly influence children's development across different social contexts, and school gardens are proposed as one response to this issue. This study presents an analysis tool for the innovative contributions a school garden can make by combining educational processes with social inclusion in impoverished contexts. Developed through a thorough review of the scientific literature, the tool was applied to a case study to demonstrate its usefulness. The main conclusion is that while school gardens per se have high innovative potential as an educational tool, whether that potential is realized depends on the garden's origin, its design, and the development process that accompanies it.

András Halbritter · Évkönyv · Europe

Following its boom period in the 19th and 20th centuries, Hungary's school garden movement is described as undergoing a new phase tied to sustainability education, with the number of school and kindergarten gardens growing rapidly. Knowledge sharing takes place through the Hungarian School Garden Network across the Carpathian Basin, and in 2019 the Ministry of Agriculture launched a School Garden Development Programme; school-garden pedagogy has been added to teacher and vocational-teacher training curricula, with further support from international projects.

Elisângela Brauner, Maria Cecília Pereira Santarosa, Cecília Elenir dos Santos Rocha · Revista Eletrônica de Educação Matemática · Brazil

This article analyzes a teaching intervention within Brazil's Residência Pedagógica pedagogical residency program, in the mathematics course, that used a community garden in basic education to investigate and teach the mathematical concepts of angles and polygons. Instruction proceeded through mathematical-modeling stages of gradually increasing complexity, and the intervention surfaced challenges including finding a site for the garden, students' prior knowledge of measurement, and recognizing patterns to solve modeling problems. It concludes that developing varied practices in the school setting favors and broadens mathematics learning.

Lilian Nadja Silva Brito, Renally Cristine Cardoso Lucas, Fernanda Ferreira de Andrade, Ygor Alexandre Beserra Sousa, Rilva Suely de Castro Cardoso Lucas, Renata Rocha Cardoso Madruga, Gabriella Barreto Soares · Revista da ABENO · Brazil

This article reports the experience of a group of dentistry students at the State University of Paraíba, Brazil, who, in the second half of 2018, formed a "health-promoting space" bringing together culture and art with the Unified Health System (SUS) at the Argemiro de Figueiredo Family Health Unit (USF) in Campina Grande. The space was built through an experience titled "Graffiti that brings life" and through the process of building a community garden at the USF. The activities were marked by strong interaction among students, the community, the health team, and local social resources, and they strengthened the bond between the health team and the population. The presence of dentistry students in primary care was observed to be important, with students recognizing that the dentist's role in primary care extends beyond providing oral health assistance.