Research & reports

Elizabete Cristina Ribeiro Silva, Alexandre Brasil Carvalho da Fonseca, Fernanda Pereira Dysarz, Ernani Jardim Reis · Alexandria Revista de Educação em Ciência e Tecnologia · Brazil

This research identifies parameters for school gardens in Brazil, analyzing various experiences and an urban public school case. The study correlates the health of students and farmers in agricultural activities, explicitly pointing out negligences in this regard. It argues that a healthy eating concept from school gardens requires an equally healthy production system, and attention to student safety can highlight farmers' working conditions, which is crucial for food and nutritional education.

Hannah Cobb, Madisen Hasenauer · Digital Commons - CSUMB (California State University, Monterey Bay) · United States (California)

This paper proposes that school gardens can be a powerful tool for teaching sustainability concepts to elementary school students. It suggests that teachers who receive school support, collaborate with committed volunteers, and have access to appropriate resources are prepared to confidently educate students on ecological conservation through school gardens.

Miren Rekondo Iparraguirre · TDX (Tesis Doctorals en Xarxa) · Europe

This doctoral thesis explores the development of eco-citizenship competence in school gardens, specifically through collaborative technological design activities. Elementary school students designed and assembled an irrigation system for their school garden over ten activities. Analysis showed students integrated elements from various design proposals without exclusive opposition, and that design conflicts led to a more dynamic and complex garden model. The study also found differences in argumentative discourse structure and dynamics between scientific argumentation and technological design activities.

Juan Sebastián Muñoz Castiblanco, José Francisco Landinez Cardona · · Colombia (Bogotá)

In the Manantial and Triangulo Alto neighborhoods of Bogotá, serious problems in solid waste management necessitate solutions involving the community and public sanitation companies. This project proposes diagnosing the current state of waste and, based on the findings, implementing an environmental education campaign with an emphasis on urban agriculture and vermiculture. It also aims to improve community collection centers and promote the use of various household materials.

Bill Musser · · United States (Iowa)

The CBHL 2015 annual meeting and conference was hosted by Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa, from June 16-20, 2015. The conference theme reflected the growing public interest in creating edible landscapes.

Laura Forbes · Digital Commons - CSUMB (California State University, Monterey Bay) · United States (California)

School gardens are common in elementary schools, but teachers find it challenging and unnecessary to incorporate them into their time and everyday curriculum due to time restrictions and the need to focus on required classroom curriculum. This capstone focuses on the beneficial factors students can receive by properly implementing the school garden into everyday curriculum and how teachers can successfully incorporate it. By creating a garden-based program and lesson plans that incorporate required subjects, teachers can spend the necessary time teaching required subjects while utilizing the school garden.

P. Qasimah Boston, Ivette A López, Krista Harper · Practicing Anthropology · United States (Tallahassee)

This study used Photovoice to evaluate an urban agricultural food movement event in Tallahassee, Florida. Youth were trained to collect and interpret data, describing the event's value and highlighting cultural influences on the food environment, including diversity and inclusion. The evaluation method, termed Evaluation for Community Action (EFCA), linked improving the food environment with innovative assessment.

Clare E. Collins, Rosalina Richards, Anthony I. Reeder, Andrew Gray · Health Promotion Journal of Australia · New Zealand

To investigate the implementation of edible gardens in New Zealand primary and secondary schools, a questionnaire was mailed to principals from 764 schools, with 491 responding (64.3% response rate). Among responding schools, 52.9% currently had an edible garden, with most started in the previous two years. Gardens were integrated into curriculum subjects, cooking lessons, recipes, and messages promoting increased fruit and vegetable consumption, with vegetables, herbs, and tree fruit commonly grown.

Beth Perry, ⁄ Walsh, Diana Silver · White Rose Research Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York) · United Kingdom

This project, conducted from October 2014 to May 2015, focused on the Biospheric Foundation in Blackfriars, East Salford, UK. The Biospheric Foundation was an urban socio-ecological experiment aiming to implement a whole-system approach to urban farming in a deprived area. Its goals included designing interconnected systems, retrofitting a building for ecological research, and raising public awareness of healthy food and ecological systems in urban settings.

Sabine Lefkowitz · · United States (Portland)

This thesis examined the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and outdoor time in Portland, Oregon public elementary schools. The study found that higher SES elementary schools spend more time outdoors than low SES schools. This disparity amplifies existing disadvantages for children in high-poverty schools, suggesting an inequity in outdoor time provision.

임정언, 성종상 · 한국전통조경학회지 · South Korea

This study examined the agricultural philosophy of Seogye Park Sedang and his treatise Saekgyeong (1676) from the Joseon Dynasty, considering its relevance to modern urban agriculture. The research identified four values: socio-economic for small farmers' stability and self-reliance, experiential for agricultural practice as learning, environmental for adapting to nature, and practical for sharing wisdom. These values align with modern urban agriculture's potential contributions to welfare, education, ecological restoration, and knowledge sharing.

Patricia Keane, Alejandro Ortega Hortelano, Jeanette Linville · Journal of Public Health Management and Practice · United States

As an evaluation of the "Healthy Kids, Healthy Cuba (HKHCuba)" program in a triethnic rural community in New Mexico, 12 partners participated in a group model building (GMB) session to introduce systems thinking. The session identified 27 influences as feedback loops from behavior over time graphs and 5 subsystems from a causal loop diagram. Results showed that in addition to strategy-related influences like access to healthy food and community garden participation, a sense of cultural pride, community, and social engagement, especially among youth, were highly salient.

Michael L. Pennell · Community Literacy Journal · Global

This abstract introduces a special issue of the Community Literacy Journal on community food literacies, highlighting the intertwined relationship between food and literacy. It notes that both are in "revolutionary" stages, with food systems re-localizing through farmers’ markets, CSAs, and community gardens. The issue presents various perspectives on community food literacies, responding to a call for service-learning practitioners and literacy workers to address these expanding relationships.

Selina Dorking, Paige Eisen, Joseph J. Godfrey, Regina López, Steven A. Smith · ScholarWorks - GVSU (Grand Valley State University) · United States

In the Heartside neighborhood of Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States, the non-profit Heartside Gleaning Initiative (HGI) has been addressing food insecurity since 2014. During the winter semester of 2015, the "Food Fighters," a team of Grand Valley State University students, collaborated with HGI to tackle the challenges of food waste, food insecurity, and community sustainability. Their efforts resulted in the Heartside Glean Ride mobile food cart plan and a brochure for Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) boxes, designed to increase food distribution.

Arga Triyandana, Mimien Henie Irawati, Ibrohim Ibrohim, Susilowati Susilowati, Endang Budiasih · Jurnal Pendidikan dan Pembelajaran Universitas Negeri Malang · Indonesia

This research aimed to develop learning tools for Ecosystem and Environmental Studies using project-based learning to support urban farming in junior high schools, following the Borg and Gall research and development model. Validation of the learning tools (syllabus, lesson plans, and modules) by instructional design experts and education practitioners showed they were valid with minor revisions, making them ready for implementation. Validation of the modules by material and media experts also confirmed their validity with only minor revisions needed.

Connie Everson · Studies in the Education of Adults · United States

This study examined informal learning among members and farmers in community-supported agriculture (CSA) in the United States. CSA began as a loosely formalized, vaguely socialistic agreement between consumers and farmers, but as it became more institutionalized, education came to hold a near-equal footing alongside the nutritional offerings. The author's research found that goodwill generated by the farmers translated into a shared sense of community, in which information and knowledge were freely shared between CSA members and their farmer. Informal learning was found to be an intricate part of participation in the CSA experience: while individuals joining a CSA did not anticipate or expect a learning experience, the season-long process was strongly conducive to many forms of informal learning.

Martín Leonardo Battaglia · CSA News · United States

An article describing the Graduate Extension Scholars (GES) program at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), Virginia Tech, United States. Citing the National Academy of Sciences (2009), it notes that future agronomists will increasingly come from cities and suburbs rather than rural areas, making youth outreach to build interest in agriculture a recruitment concern. The GES program has graduate students develop educational modules for youth based on their own research, working with 4-H youth development agents; lesson plans are posted online, and networking through professional conferences of the Department of Agricultural, Leadership, and Community Education extends impact beyond individual classrooms or clubs. Per the National Academy of Sciences (2009), several urban agricultural education programs are already established, but higher education institutions are not well represented in most K-12 curricular programs. The article also references the 2013 Next Generation Science Standards.

Natoshia M. Askelson, Disa Lubker Cornish, Elizabeth H. Golembiewski · Journal of Agriculture Food Systems and Community Development · United States

A mixed-methods study of rural U.S. school food service directors in a midsized Midwestern state examined perceptions of voluntary school meal programs such as farm-to-school and school garden programs, using semi-structured telephone interviews (n=67) and an online survey (n=57). Directors reported little experience with these programs and perceived them as very challenging to implement, citing very small staff, lack of concrete knowledge about how the programs work, and lack of access to local producers and chefs as the main barriers.

Tainã Coelho Quevedo, Anilton Squena de Oliveira, Lauren Machado Gayeski, Marcelo Pereira de Barros · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Brazil

Through Universidade Feevale's participation in Brazil's Projeto Rondon, workshops presented concepts and methodologies for developing community gardens and reusing organic waste and rainwater in two locations in Maranhao state. Three lectures were given and four community gardens, four composters, and two cisterns were built across four municipal schools, training 97 people. Environmental multipliers were trained through active community participation, and alternative cost-reduction techniques were made available for economically disadvantaged regions.

Carlos Verdaguer Viana-Cárdenas · · Europe

This report describes the third Training School of the COST Action Urban Agriculture Europe, held in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Basque Country, Spain, from 24 to 26 September 2014. The city had recently expanded through two new neighborhoods, Zabalgana and Salburua, along its greenbelt, but these areas suffered from over-dimensioned public space lacking density and mixed uses and were expensive for the municipality to maintain; the Training School used Zabalgana as a practical field to explore urban agriculture as a way to re-qualify this excess public space, through field visits and presentations followed by a one-day design charrette.

王东升, 刘家琴 · 果农之友 · China

A journalistic feature marks the first anniversary of Beijing's first "urban agriculture science courtyard," jointly established by the Beijing and Changping soil-fertilizer stations and China Agricultural University at the Xinchengyuan fruit cooperative in Changping district. The article describes on-site visits documenting the courtyard's work extending urban agriculture technology, training new-type professional farmers, and hosting researchers and graduate students on-site to provide free, barrier-free, immediate technical services aimed at boosting strawberry yields, resource efficiency, and farmer income, without giving specific quantitative results.

Saul Hernandez, Anthony Boynton, Interns · Community Literacy Journal · United States

An editor's note for the book review section of Community Literacy Journal. It recounts an ecological metaphor shared by a community garden leader at a Georgia community center, mentions raised beds built with a Knight Foundation grant and a seedling-distribution outreach effort, and surveys several book reviews in the same issue covering literacy and community-building, DIY culture, and race and education.

Yong Sock Chang · · Global

A study discussing an ecology awareness art project using school gardens, plants and environments. Noting that a recent survey found almost 50% of children cited ecological problems as the world's biggest problem, it draws on frameworks including Freire's critical pedagogy, Dewey's "art as experience," and the concept of haptic, multi-sensory perception, to propose an art education project through which children actively engage with ecological awareness and solutions, presenting various such ecology art education projects using school gardens, plants and environments.

Zhang Le · Chinese Landscape Architecture · China

A review tracing the history of the school garden in Western basic education since the 17th century. It states that in modern educational philosophy, gardens have been valued as a context beneficial to children's intellectual and spiritual growth and well-being, and were introduced into kindergartens, primary and middle schools as an "outdoor classroom." The review examines how the values and meanings of school gardens have expanded across changing historical periods and surveys recent research and practice, with the stated goal of promoting the development of school gardens and children's gardens in contemporary China.

Matthew Northrop, Brooks C. Wingo, Jamy D. Ard · The Qualitative Report · United States

A qualitative study assessing why community gardeners participate at Jones Valley Urban Farm in Birmingham, Alabama, and the potential impacts of participation on members' health, community and diet. Twenty active gardeners across four focus groups reported prior experience, cost savings, taste, sustainability concerns and access to fresh, organic food as reasons for participating, and reported sharing, community development, mental health, personal pride, perceived health benefits and newfound food variety as impacts of their involvement.