1. SCHOOL-COMMUNITY FOOD GARDENS
Making the Case
Ontario Edible Education Network
Feb. 18, 2015

2. RESEARCH BASE
 Most school garden research comes from the
US, and was considered lacking in rigour until
fairly recently. Many studies were not formal
enough.
 Recent work has synthesized the body of
research in meta-analysis, confirming many of
the results of smaller studies.
 Key research is contained in my paper, Kids
Growing: Implementing School-Community
Gardens in Ontario (Harrison-Vickars, 2014)

3. SCHOOL FOOD GARDEN EVIDENCE
 Research is most compelling on 3 facets:
Increased consumption
of fruits and vegetables
(8+ studies)
Academic
achievement,
particularly
science but also
math, language,
arts & social
studies (15
studies)
Enhanced and
enriched
environmental
education (15
studies)

4. PATHWAYS TO GARDEN-BASED LEARNING

5. SCHOOL FOOD GARDEN GOALS
 Science achievement, and other academic
subjects
A meta-analysis of
research into science
achievement through
school gardening showed
increased test scores in 9
of 12 reported studies
that measured them.
(Blair 2009)
Williams and Dixon (2013)
synthesized research
conducted between 1990
and 2010 on the impact of
garden-based learning on
academic outcomes, and
found improved science
outcomes in 14/15 studies.
(93%), with math scores
improving in 80% and
language in 72%.

6. HOW DO TEACHERS USE GARDENS?
 Research (Graham et al., 2004) shows the
following breakdown:
Science……………………………..90%
Nutrition…………………………….71%
Language Arts…………………….64%
Environmental studies…………60%
Health………………………………..59%
Agricultural Studies………….…57%
Math………………………………….56%

7. HOW DO TEACHERS USE GARDENS?
 A much larger study (Graham & Zidenberg-
Cherr, 2005) found:
Enhancement of academic instruction…
72%
Science
instruction…………………………….. 65%
Nutrition
…………………………………………… 47%
Environmental Studies………………………..
43%
Language
Arts……………………………………. 42%
Math

8. HOW DO TEACHERS USE GARDENS?
 My study (Harrison-Vickars, 2014) found that
teachers (n=11) rated best garden curriculum links
as follows:
 Science………………………………100%
 Language……………………………..82%
 Math ……………………………………73%
 Social studies……………………….55%
 Cross-curricular ……………………45%
 Art ……………………………………… 45%
 Environmental education……….36%
 Health…………………………………..27%

9. WHAT ARE THE BARRIERS?
 Studies are mixed, but generally:
 Lack of time
 Lack of curriculum
 Summer gap
 Lack of garden knowledge
 Lack of administrative/policy support
 Teaching outdoors presents challenges
 Gardens are often installed because of health and
nutrition concerns, but not used by health educators

10. HOW DO COMMUNITY PARTNERS HELP?
 My research (Harrison-Vickars, 2014) found
that:
 Schools with a dedicated garden co-ordinator
have longer-lived garden programs
 Higher-income schools have longer-lived garden
programs
 In a jurisdiction (Washington, DC) with robust,
policy-supported school gardens, there are 17
groups like ours partnering with schools

11. HOW DO COMMUNITY PARTNERS HELP?
 Teachers in my study (n=11) identified the
ratio of adults to children when teaching in
the garden as important (82%)
 Summer maintenance was identified as a
barrier by 64% (100% in school without
partner, and 18% in school with partner)
 Practical support and garden knowledge
were identified as important by 45%

12. CONCLUSION
 School gardens are mainly championed by
individuals in individual schools, however,
scaling up may create efficiencies eg. one
garden educator for multiple schools
 Funding is a key issue, and therefore equity
– schools with higher-income parents may
have longer-lived garden projects