Melanie Davies | ILS 252 improves your world

Introduction

My project is to create a guide for designing and maintaining a school garden. School gardens require hard work, time, and money, so some question whether school gardens are truly worth the cost (e.g., Flanagan, 2010). In this post, I argue that there are many benefits for school gardens and that these benefits outweight the costs of starting and maintaining them. I will focus on four domains in which school gardens and their associated curriculum can benefit students: academics, health, environmental awareness, and personal development. In particular, I will focus on research involving elementary school children, as the majority of school gardens exist in these schools. (Graham, Beall, Lussier, McLaughlin, & Zidenberg-Cherr, 2005; Waliczek, Bradley, Lineberger, & Zajicek, 2000). A more thorough summary of the potential benefits of school gardens is illustrated below (Figure from Ozer, 2007):

Academic Benefits

Academic instruction is the primary purpose of a school, therefore, arguably, the most important reason to use a garden in the curriculum is to increase the academic performance and knowledge of the students. School gardens are most regularly used for instruction in the subject areas of science, environmental studies, and nutrition (Graham et al., 2005). Wisconsin requires every school district to integrate an environmental education curriculum into every subject area, particularly in the arts, health, science, and social studies (Department of Public Instruction, 2010). The Wisconsin Environmental Education Board defines environmental education as:

A lifelong learning process that leads to an informed and involved citizenry having the creative problem-solving skills, scientific and social literacy, ethical awareness and sensitivity for the relationship between humans and the environment, and commitment to engage in responsible individual and cooperative actions. By these actions, environmentally literate citizens will help ensure an ecologically and economically sustainable environment (Wisconsin Environmental Education Board, 2008).

By the end of fourth grade, students are expected to have skills in questioning and analysis, investigating environmental issues, making decisions and taking action, knowledge of environmental processes and systems, and an understanding of personal and civic responsibility (Fortier, Grady, Lee, & Marinac, 1998). School gardens are being used as a method to teach environmental education to students and achieve these goals (Gabriel, 2010) . Studies have shown that school gardens have beneficial effects for student knowledge. In one study, researchers separated classrooms of third, fourth, and fifth grade students into two groups. One group received traditional classroom science instruction, while the other incorporated gardening in their science lessons. Both groups used the same curriculum guidelines. At the end of the school year, students who had received the gardening curriculum had significantly higher scores on a test of science achievement than the students who received only classroom instruction (Klemmer, Waliczek, & Zajicek, 2005). In another study comparing a gardening curriculum to a control group, fifth grade students who gardened had significantly increased science achievement scores compared to their peers in the control group (Smith & Motsenbocker, 2005). School gardening also receives positive reviews from those who are involved in it. In a web-based survey of adults working with children in school, community, or home gardens, all respondents indicated that working in a garden taught the children about nature and the environment (Waliczek et al., 2000). In other surveys, the majority of principals responded that their school garden was moderately to very effective at enhancing science and the vast majority of teachers viewed school gardening as a somewhat successful or very successful teaching tool (DeMarco, Relf, & McDaniel, 1999; Graham et al. 2005). In addition, parents indicate that after only three one-hour sessions of a garden-based curriculum, their kindergarten to third-grade children showed increased interest in researching their questions and an increased ability to distinguish between living and nonliving things (Hilgers, Haynes, & Olson, 2008). In addition to general science knowledge, students also show an increase in nutritional knowledge after participating in a school garden program. A study by Morris and Zidenberg-Cherr found that students who participated in classroom-based nutrition education or a combination of classroom-based education and gardening activities had better knowledge of nutrition than children who received no special instruction. These results were still seen at an assessment six months after the program ended. (Zidenberg-Cherr & Morris, 2002).

Health Benefits

In addition to academic instruction, a key responsibility for schools is to prepare their students for life. Encouraging a healthy lifestyle is vitally important for children, and never more so than now. Approximately 17% of children in the United States between the ages of two and 19 are obese (at or above the 95^th percentile for body mass index) and this value has tripled since 1980 (Ogden, Carroll, Curtin, Lamb, & Flegal, 2010). In addition, for the majority of U.S. children, fruit and vegetable consumption is below the recommended level of five-a-day. In the elementary school age group, approximately 74% of children age six to 11 did not eat the recommended amount of daily fruit and 84% did not eat the recommended amount of daily vegetables (Lorson, Melgar-Quinonez, & Taylor, 2009). School gardens provide an opportunity for educators to increase the fruit and vegetable preferences and intakes of their students. In a study investigating the effects of a gardening program on third and fifth graders’ attitudes and behaviors towards fruits and vegetables, researchers found that children reported that they liked vegetables more after participating in the gardening program. This improvement was especially strong in children who had lower preferences for vegetables at the beginning of the program. In addition, the authors found that the children were more likely to choose a fruit or vegetable as a snack (Lineberger & Zajicek, 2000).

There is mixed evidence about whether gardening programs actually increase their consumption of fruits and vegetables. The previously mentioned study found no significant difference between the amount of fruits and vegetables eaten by the students before and after the gardening program. However, another study, this time focused on sixth-grade children, found that compared to a control group, students receiving a 12-week nutrition-based education and gardening program doubled the number of servings of fruits and vegetables that they ate daily. The students increased their consumption from 1.93 to 4.5 servings per day and showed increases in their intake of vitamin A, vitamin C, and fiber (McAleese & Rankin, 2007). Researchers investigating the effects of a garden program on second to fifth-graders found that students made healthier snack choices after the program and had improved knowledge of the benefits of eating fruits and vegetables, but there was no improvement in their preference for fruits and vegetables (Koch, Walickzek, & Zajicek, 2006). The aforementioned study by Morris and Zidenberg-Cherr also found that the students who took classroom-based nutrition education had improved preferences for carrots and broccoli compared to the control group and those who also participated in garden activities had improved preferences for carrots, broccoli, snow peas, and zucchini. Significantly, zucchini was not grown any of the gardens, which suggests that the program was able to improve students’ preferences for vegetables that they did not have specific exposure to (Zidenberg-Cherr & Morris, 2002). In addition, first-grade students who participated in a school garden program were more willing to taste vegetables grown in their garden than students in a control group (Morris, Neustadter, & Zidenberg-Cherr, 2001).

Environmental awareness

Children today live in a world that is increasingly urban and indoors. 83% of the U.S. population lives in a metro area (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2009) and the amount of time that children spend outside has decreased in recent years (Cleland, Timperio, Salmon, Hume, Baur, & Crawford, 2010). School gardens provide an opportunity for children be outdoors and interact with nature. In the study assessing parental perceptions of improvements brought about by a school gardening program, researchers found that parents indicated that their child had improved environmental awareness. Children were more likely to have increased respect for landscape planting, increased awareness of environmental issues, and increased interest in the health and care of plants and gardening (Hilgers, Haynes, & Olson, 2008).

Personal development

School gardens are not only a tool for increasing knowledge, but they are social enterprise, requiring the participation and collaboration of adults and children. In the web-based survey, all adults responded that they felt that gardening brought them closer to the children that they worked with and a high percentage of adults indicated that they noticed an increase in self-esteem and reduction in stress in the children (Waliczek et al., 2000). In an evaluation of a gardening program for third-grade students, researchers found that the majority of students enjoyed the program and shared what they had learned with others (Dirks & Orvis, 2005). In addition to these findings, it has been suggested that children with attention deficit disorder have improved functioning after spending time outdoors, and the more natural their play environment, the less severe are their symptoms. These findings suggest that for children with ADD, spending time in a school garden may enable them to focus in other school activities. (Faber Taylor, Kuo, & Sullivan, 2001). School gardens also can increase the connection of students to their community. In one example, students at a Madison elementary school delivered baskets of gourds that they had grown in their garden to senior citizens. One student remarked that “It makes me feel like I’m giving someone happiness,” (Cotant, 2011).

Conclusion

In summary, there are numerous findings that indicate that school gardens are beneficial for students in a multitude of ways. Children have increased test scores, knowledge of science, nutrition, and the environment, improved eating preferences, more interaction with the environment, and more opportunities for social development. It is because of these reasons that I have chosen to do my project on school gardens, because the evidence suggests that it is worthwhile for schools to invest the time, money, and effort into creating them.

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