Research & reports
Peer-reviewed research and reports on community urban agriculture, food education, composting, welfare and more.
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2539 results(98 / 102)
Factors Influencing Career Choice Of Urban Agricultural Education Students
2005Levon T. Esters, Blannie E. Bowen · Journal of Agricultural Education · Global
This study investigated factors influencing career choices among graduates of an urban agricultural education program. While former students identified parents and friends as influential, and cited various reasons for their career paths, a discriminant analysis model could not distinguish between those who chose agricultural careers and those who did not after completing the secondary agricultural program.
Methodological critiqueFood educationEconomicsThe Effects of an After-school Garden Club for Fourth Graders Regarding Fruit and Vegetable Nutrition
2005Suzanne A. O'Brien, Candice A. Shoemaker · HortScience · Global
This study examined the effects of an eight-lesson after-school gardening and nutrition curriculum on 17 fourth-grade students in an experimental group and 21 in a control group. No differences were found in nutrition knowledge scores or fruit and vegetable preference between or within groups at baseline or end-program. While baseline gardening self-efficacy and outcome expectations differed, the control group significantly increased theirs during the study, whereas the experimental group maintained high levels.
Food educationHealthEcological Stewardship as Applied Spirituality
2005John Thelen Steere · The Journal of Bahá’í Studies · Global
This essay defines community-based environmental stewardship as an emerging practice encompassing habitat restoration, land conservation, resource management, and the creation of parks and community gardens. It explores the significance and spiritual dimensions of environmental stewardship, examining its relationship to Bahá’í teachings.
CommunityBiodiversityFood educationThe Pull of the Earth: Participatory Ethnography in the School Garden
2005Laurie Thorp · · Global
This book explores participatory ethnography in the school garden, covering themes such as locating the author and the other, the grace of a garden, a place for connection, wonder, how the garden grows, a journey in one place, the Pizza-Earth reunification, and a methodology of letting go, getting lost, and finding one's way.
Food educationCommunityContested Desires: The Edible Landscape of School
2005Catherine Burke · Paedagogica Historica · Global
This paper explores the "edible landscape" of schools in the UK context, examining the historical and pedagogical significance of food and drink production and consumption within educational institutions. It notes that early accounts viewed children's association with food as potentially chaotic and a marker of social class differences. However, schools also served as important sites for food production and consumption as a form of pedagogy from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries.
Food educationCommunityPolicyUBC Food Systems Project : development at UBC
2005Amanda Brown, Antonin van der Lely, Camilo Cortes, Eileen Leung, Fung Lam, Liz Overton, Muneera Hussain · cIRcle (University of British Columbia) · Canada
The UBC Food Systems Project evaluated the effects of campus development on creating a sustainable food system at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Researchers identified barriers and opportunities in UBC's Official Community Plan (OCP) and Comprehensive Community Plan (CCP), then proposed "The Edible Campus" urban agricultural strategy. This strategy included six actions like demonstration gardens and food production on buildings, with recommendations for future viability studies.
Food educationCommunityPolicySchool-based community gardens: re-establishing healthy relationships with food
2005Shawn Somerset, Richard Ball, Melanie Flett, Rebecca Geissman · · Australia (Queensland)
This study surveyed primary schools in the Logan region of south-east Queensland, Australia, finding that 24% had functioning vegetable gardens. Face-to-face interviews with teachers explored the origins and functions of these school-based community gardens. The research suggests these gardens offer an opportunity to integrate nutrition, physical activity, and environmental sustainability into curricula.
CommunityFood educationHealthWelfareCapacity Building for School Gardening
2005A Swedish, Case Study, Petter Åkerblom · · Europe
Experiences from Swedish research on school gardening and greening school grounds were reflected upon. A process-orientated case study in two Swedish cities discussed future workshops as a platform for situated capacity building in interaction between in-school and external stakeholders (e.g., school ground planners, administrators). The case study indicates that using future workshops as a research method involves stakeholders as subjects in the collaborative production of new knowledge.
Food educationCommunityGreat Opportunities in Urban Agriculture: Planning for Teaching in Non-Traditional Programs
2005Kerry Martens · The Agricultural education magazine · United States (Connecticut)
This paper recounts the author's personal experience in a regional suburban agricultural education program in Connecticut, detailing how it changed their career goals and led them to become an agriculture teacher. The author reports acquiring transferable skills, such as record-keeping and working within a budget through a portfolio-based SAE project. The experience concludes that large, suburban agricultural education programs offer great opportunities.
Food educationPeri-urban agriculturePlanificacion holistica de saneamiento ecologico en ciudades pequenas: El programa piloto TepozEco
2005Ron Sawyer, Anne Delmaire, Andrés A. Buenfil · · Mexico
A study shares initial experiences from TepozEco, a pilot program for holistic ecological sanitation planning in Tepoztlan, Mexico, which includes promoting ecological toilets, water demand and greywater management, rainwater harvesting, organic waste recycling, urban agriculture, and environmental education. The project's initial phase is described as encouraging, attributed mainly to an iterative, flexible, and responsive design process—adaptive planning—and a close network of partners and collaborators; while the local context is in some respects unique, particularly regarding institutional resources, local environmental awareness, and local government commitment, the municipality's socioeconomic conditions reflect those of much of Latin America, suggesting TepozEco could serve as an ecological sanitation model for a significant part of Mexico, Central America, and South America.
CompostOrganic cycleFood educationCommunityAGRICULTURA URBANA COMO UM COMPONENTE DO DESENVOLVIMENTO HUMANO SUSTENTÁVEL: BRASIL, FRANÇA E RÚSSIA
2005Louiza M. Boukharaeva, Gustavo Kauark Chianca, Marcel Marloie, Altair Toledo Machado, Cynthia Torres de Toledo Machado · Cadernos de Ciência & Tecnologia · Global
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) treats the development of urban agriculture as part of sustainable human development policy, as it proposed at the Second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) in June 1996. This article analyzes urban agriculture in three cases: Russia, where it developed after World War II; France, representing Western European countries where the activity has been marginalized; and Brazil, where its development is a consequence of agricultural modernization that pushed people into cities. Surveys and a literature review show that urban agriculture has historically reduced the intensity of food crises and has contributed to feeding part of the population in normal periods, while also serving functions of pleasure and relaxation, therapy, and identity. It helps transmit cultural heritage and can be used educationally. Developing these functions requires both legislative action ensuring long-term access to land plots for all social groups and joint activity among multiple public and private participants.
CommunityPolicyHealthWelfareFood educationLeisure Spaces as Potential Sites for Interracial Interaction: Community Gardens in Urban Areas
2004Kimberly J. Shinew, Troy D. Glover, Diana C. Parry · Journal of Leisure Research · United States (St. Louis)
A study focusing on African American and White gardeners in St. Louis, United States, examined whether urban community gardens are perceived as spaces where people of different races can successfully integrate. The study also sought to examine race and its relationship to perceptions, motivations, and benefits of community gardening.
CommunityHealthFood educationCommunity Gardens as a Platform for Education for Sustainability
2004Linda Corkery · Australian Journal of Environmental Education · Australia (Sydney)
This paper discusses the role of community gardens in fostering community development and neighborhood improvement in Sydney's Waterloo Public Housing Estate, arguing they also serve as a valuable educational platform for sustainability. Based on interdisciplinary research, the findings affirm the importance of community gardens for public housing tenants and present the gardens and their associated activities as an effective platform for education for sustainability.
CommunityFood educationOASIS: Organic Vegetable Production Teaching Endeavor and Community Supported Agriculture Venture
2004Constance L. Falk, Pauline Pao, Christopher S. Cramer · HortScience · United States (New Mexico)
In January 2002, the OASIS organic vegetable garden was initiated on the New Mexico State University campus as a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) venture. The project aims to provide students with experiential education in organic production and business management, investigate the feasibility of small-scale organic drip irrigation in the Chihuahuan desert, and demonstrate the CSA model. In its first two years, the 2/3-acre project grew about 230 varieties and generated $32,000 in revenue, with 32 members in the first year and 69 in 2003.
Food educationCommunityCSA & TeikeiOrganic cycleViolência Escolar e Horta Comunitária: A Educação Ambiental Enquanto Agente de Socialização
2004Juliana Munaretti de Oliveira, Janaína F. F. Cintrão · Revista Brasileira Multidisciplinar · Brazil (Araraquara)
This research in Araraquara, Brazil, investigated behavioral problems among high school students at a state school in Vila Xavier. A questionnaire was used to understand behaviors conflicting with social norms. The study observed changes in student behavior related to food, specifically increased appreciation for the cafeteria and respect for lunch staff. These observations led to the creation of a community garden, which contributed to students' socialization, offered possibilities for new skills, and generated value for citizenship, in addition to supplementing family nutrition.
CommunityFood educationHealthUrban Agriculture in Shenzhen: Problems and Strategies for Sustainable Development
2004Jianguo Dai · Journal of Shenzhen Polytechnic · China (Shenzhen)
Urban agriculture in Shenzhen faces problems including decreasing farmland, inadequate skilled farmers, poor disaster resistance, immature insurance, increasing contamination of water, soil, air, and agricultural products, and poor modern enterprise management. Strategies proposed for sustainable development include specific laws, pollution protection, education, research, technology application, industrial technology application, leisure agriculture development, and diversification.
Contamination & food safetyPolicyEconomicsClimate changeFood educationGrowing Healthy Children: Can Gardening Improve Fruit and Vegetable Attitudes in Minority Children?
2004Geralyn Nolan, Jayne M. Zajicek · HortScience · United States
This research investigated whether gardening supplemented with nutritional curriculum could improve fruit and vegetable attitudes in minority children in Texas elementary schools. Children completed pre- and post-tests evaluating attitudes, snack preferences, and nutritional knowledge. Statistically significant positive differences were found in all three variables after the gardening and nutritional instruction.
Food educationHealthCommunity여성농업인센터 운영사업의 사회적 편익 추정
2004최윤지, 김경미, 강경하, 이진영 · · South Korea
This study calculated the economic effects of Women-Farmer's Centers in South Korea, which provide services like childcare, after-school learning, education, and counseling. Based on the business plans of 14 centers, the total economic income effect was estimated at 2,784 million won. The services contributed to the ease and quality of life for women farmers and generated economic benefits for the community and country.
EconomicsCommunityFood educationWelfareDesigning a Children's Garden for Experiential Learning in the South Carolina Botanical Garden
2004Robert F. Polomski, Carri Carver Wallace, Mary Haque, Lisa K. Wagner, James E. Arnold, Amy D. Craddock, Christian Maloney Cicimurri, Lisa D. Chancellor · HortScience · United States (South Carolina)
An interdisciplinary team designed a 2.5-acre Children's Garden for experiential learning at the South Carolina Botanical Garden. The plans include 13 outdoor theme gardens, such as a "Dinosaur Dig" and a "Food for Thought Garden." A design class of 15 students contributed 2,000 hours to the project, producing 30 drawing boards of research, analysis, and design proposals presented in Fall 2003.
Food educationCommunityAgricultura urbana e segurança alimentar em Belo Horizonte: cultivando uma cidade sustentável
2004Daniela Adil Oliveira de Almeida · Organic Eprints (International Centre for Research in Organic Food Systems, and Research Institute of Organic Agriculture) · Brazil (Belo Horizonte)
This article focuses on the "Project for Training Local Development Agents in Food and Nutritional Security and Urban Agriculture," which began in 2003 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
Food educationFood sovereignty & justiceCommunityWhat's for dinner?Organizing around food access issues in Los Angeles.
2004Prebus, Olivia · Occidental College Scholar (Occidental College) · United States (Los Angeles)
This work addresses the gross inequity of food access in low-income neighborhoods of Los Angeles, such as MacArthur Park, where grocery stores are scarce. The author's internship at the Center for Food and Justice involved projects like a Community Food Assessment and organizing a community garden, all focused on empowering communities to tackle complex food access issues. The abstract highlights the severe problem of limited healthy food options leading to simultaneous obesity and malnutrition.
Equity & displacementCommunityFood educationHealthWelfareDavis school program supports life-long healthy eating habits in children
2004Heather Graham, Gail Feenstra, A. Evans, Sheri Zidenberg‐Cherr · California Agriculture · United States (California)
A study (2004, California Agriculture) evaluates the Farm to School Connection, a comprehensive program in the Davis, California school environment that sought to promote lifelong healthy eating habits in children and connect the school garden, cafeteria, and classroom to local agriculture, including farmers'-market-style salad bars, classroom education, farm tours, and waste management. Evaluated through interviews and surveys of program leaders, teachers, and school staff, the program was found to increase participation in the school lunch program following the addition of salad bars, and numerous partnerships developed among those involved; the components of the Farm to School Connection are presented as evidence supporting comprehensive school nutrition programs and their positive impact on the school environment.
Food educationHealthCommunityTeacher Researchers in Agricultural Education: Developing Teacher Leaders through Action Research
2004Cary J. Trexler · The Agricultural education magazine · Global
An essay on action research in agricultural education discusses its concept and value, citing organizing a community garden and determining best practices for it as one example of an action-research project, alongside after-school recreation programs and rural-community documentation efforts. It characterizes the researcher's vested personal interest in the outcome as the defining feature of action research, and frames "teacher research" — an educator's systematic reflection on their own classroom, shop, SAEs, or FFA activities — as one form of it, drawing on Schön (1983) and Mundy and Russell (1994) on knowledge embedded in practice. The piece presents no empirical data.
Food educationCommunityCommunity-Gardens and Science Laboratories as Texts for Science Literacy Development
2004Jrène Rahm · Palgrave Macmillan US eBooks · Global
A theoretical book chapter examines community gardens and science laboratories as "texts" that mediate the development of science literacy. Drawing on sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, Wertsch), it frames texts not merely as transmitters of information but as tools for dialogue and meaning-making, introducing the notion of texts as dynamic "participants" that change and grow with their users as the analytical basis for reading environments as texts.
CommunityFood educationSmall-scale Urban Agriculture in Havana and the Reproduction of the 'New Man' in Contemporary Cuba
2003Premat A. · European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies · Cuba (Havana)
Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Havana (1999-2001), this article examines urban garden parcelas as sites revealing tensions between private and public domains, finding that revolutionary values around food security and community persisted in post-Soviet Cuba despite assumptions of growing individualism.
CommunityPolicyFood educationWelfare