SCHOOL FOOD ENVIRONMENT
ENACT STRATEGY: Gardens
Establish school gardens to expose students to fresh produce while teaching them about how food is grown
School gardens provide an outdoor classroom to teach children about the connection between the foods that they eat and where that food comes from. Exposing students to fresh produce grown in gardens presents a unique opportunity to meet children’s immediate nutritional needs by introducing them to a range of fruits and vegetables; this can help get students excited about growing and eating food and cultivate lifelong healthy habits. Moreover school gardens not only provide an opportunity for an experiential learning experience regarding the food system (the entire process food goes through from farm to plate), but also create a unique opportunity to integrate other academic subjects. By linking garden-based education to academic curriculum, school gardens can serve as a unique learning environment that supports achievement in academic areas such as science, math, reading, and writing.
Berkeley Community Gardening Collaborative
The Berkeley Community Gardening Collaborative school gardens program is on-site at elementary, middle and high schools, with the aim to integrate organic food production into the curricula and into the school lunch pro-grams.
The Edible Schoolyard is a cooking and gardening program in Berkeley, California. Since 1997, students participate in classes in the school’s organic garden and the kitchen classroom where students prepare seasonal dishes from produce they have grown.
This site has been created for America's K-12 school community through a partnership between the United States Botanic Garden and Chicago Botanic Garden. The School Garden Wizard includes a range of resources for planning school gardens, creating and maintaining gardens, and using gardens as an instructional tool for students.
A Child's Garden of Standards: Linking School Gardens to California Education Standards
This guide is designed to show how garden-based education (GBE) strongly supports California’s academic content standards. Although it was developed with California academic standards in mind, it can be used by educators in other states to bridges the distance between the garden experience and academic standards of other states, as well as federal standards.Kids Gardening School Gardening Registry
If you are interested in connecting with other schools and programs in your area, or you would like to get a sense of school gardens across the nation the Kids Gardening School Gardening Registry is a great place to get started!
This 9-step guide provides important tips for creating and maintaining a school garden.
National Gardening Association
NGA’s is a national non-profit agency with programs and initiatives designed to highlight the opportunities for plant-based education in schools, communities, and backyards across the country. NGA provides a range of resources specific to youth gardening.
Children participating in garden-based education consume more produce**
This study shows that 6th grade children participating in both nutrition education and garden-based activities ate more fruits and vegetables than children receiving just nutrition education or receiving neither. They also showed an increase in Vitamin A, Vitamin C and fiber intake.
McAleese JD, Rankin LL Garden-Based Nutrition Education Affects Fruit and Vegetable Consumption in Sixth-Grade Adolescents J Am Dietc Assoc. 2007 April;107(4):662-5.
Community gardens as a tool to reduce diabetes among Navajo**
This study shows that community gardens can be a tool to prevent or delay the onset of diabetes among Navajo by: improving nutrition, increasing physical activity, increasing income, and creating a positive mental outlook.
Lombard KA, Forster-Cox S, Smeal D, O'Neill MK. Diabetes on the Navajo nation: what role can gardening and agriculture extension play to reduce it? Rural Remote Health. 2006 Oct-Dec;6(4):640
Children are more likely to taste vegetables after school garden program (PDF)
First grade students who were taught about nutrition in class and grew vegetables in a school garden were more likely to taste new vegetables. Improving children’s desire to taste vegetables is thought to be the first step in developing healthier consumption patterns.
Morris JL, Neustadter A, Zidenberg-Cherr S Garden-enhanced nutrition curriculum improves fourth-grade school children's knowledge of nutrition and preferences for some vegetables. J Am Diet Assoc. 2002 Jan;102(1):91-3
Garden Based Learning: Research that Supports Our Work
This resource from Cornell University shares the benefits of garden based learning, referencing existing evidence based research.
** We can only provide links to the article abstracts and not the full text.