abstract: The population of older adults and the percentage of people living in urban areas are both increasing in the U.S. Finding ways to enhance city-dwelling, older adults' social integration, cognitive vitality, and connectedness to nature were conceptualized as critical pathways to maximizing their subjective well-being (SWB) and overall health. Past research has found that gardening is associated with increased social contact and reduced risk of dementia, and that higher levels of social support, cognitive functioning, mindfulness, and connectedness to nature are positively related to various aspects of SWB. The present study was a pilot study to examine the feasibility of conducting a randomized, controlled trial of community gardening and to provide an initial assessment of a new intervention--"Mindful Community Gardening," or mindfulness training in the context of gardening. In addition, this study examined whether community gardening, with or without mindfulness training, enhanced SWB among older adults and increased social support, attention and mindfulness, and connectedness to nature. Fifty community-dwelling adults between the ages of 55 and 79 were randomly assigned to one of three groups: Traditional Community Gardening (TCG), Mindful Community Gardening (MCG), or Wait-List Control. The TCG and MCG arms each consisted of two groups of 7 to 10 participants meeting weekly for nine weeks. TCG involved typical gardening activities undertaken collaboratively. MCG involved the same, but with the addition of guided development of non-judgmental, present-focused awareness. There was a statistically significant increase in different aspects of mindfulness for the TCG and the MCG arms. The interventions did not measurably impact social support, attention, or connectedness to nature in this small, high functioning, pilot sample. Qualitative analysis of interview data from 12 participants in the TCG and MCG groups revealed that both groups helped some participants to better cope with adversity. It was concluded that it is feasible to conduct randomized, controlled trials of community gardening with urban older adults, and considerations for implementing such interventions are delineated. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Psychology 2011

Abstract: Northern rural Indigenous communities in Canada are facing many challenges getting regular access to nutritious foods, primarily due to the high cost of market food, restricted availability of nutritious foods, and lack of government support for nutritious food programs. The consequences of food insecurity in this context are expressed in high rates of diabetes, heart disease, and childhood obesity. Many Indigenous communities are responding to issues around healthy food access by attempting to rebuild local food capacity in their specific regions. Important first steps have been taken in developing local food initiatives, yet it remains to be seen what impact these initiatives are having on improving northern food security. This paper explores this question by working with a remote fly in community in the sub-arctic region Ontario to construct a hoop house and develop a school based community gardening program. By using a community-based participatory approach, it was determined that hoop house and gardening initiatives in rural, northern settings have the potential to build up local food production; can develop the skills and knowledge of community members; can engage and involve youth in growing local food; and do align with land-based food teachings. We show that despite widespread and multidimensional community hardships, there was considerable community buy-in and support to the project, giving hope for future development, and providing important insight for those seeking to initiate similar gardening, hoop house, or greenhouse initiatives in northern Indigenous communities. Abstract 2: Indigenous peoples of what is now known as Canada have experienced rapid lifestyle changes as a result of European contact. Indigenous food systems were systematically eroded by the Canadian government, leading to extremely high rates of food insecurity, and diet related disease. The complicated dynamics and interventions contributing to the erosion of local knowledges have forced a dependence on a market-based food system in remote and northern Indigenous communities in Canada. Communities are experiencing a double burden of the unaffordability or inaccessibility of traditional foods from the land, and the exorbitantly high cost and reduced availability of quality market foods largely due to the cost of shipping to these regions. The entanglement of local practices and global food systems is multifaceted and complex, thus the solution to food insecurity challenges are met with the burden of navigating both the local and the global. The purpose of this article is to analyze local meanings around food in a remote sub-Arctic First Nation in Ontario within the context of “coloniality” and global food systems. Drawing from the work of Walter Mignolo, and his concept of “border thinking”, this article explains the complex subsistence practices in the Canadian north and how they are located within a larger global framework. We show that by pinpointing potential “cracks” in the dominant Western epistemic as border thinking, a more useful understanding of food procurement strategies can come to light and offer new direction for culturally appropriate and sustainable food initiatives in the North.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-14T13:26:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 4582663 bytes, checksum: fb6437e3ef32057c58a98b6e3537fac3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-08-26 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This work tries to analyse the contemporary men's and women's hard effort joined in social ambivalence games. Cities are the place for excellence of tenseness and conflicts materialization created by the difficulty to live with the different as alterity. Despite the geographical, historic, economic and cultural singularity of the cities, on large or small scale, there is a visualization of the processes of socio-space segregation among individuals and social groups, enlarged and resignified through the mixture of old themes and structural problems with the new sensibility, fear and stigma emergency brought by capitalist modernity on its global phase. So, there is an attempt to understand the joint between global processes and local particularity relating to the tenseness and discomfort caused by the "myxophobia" to people from incongruous places with some kind of order and civility. The city of Belo Jardim was the analysis stage of these questions, namely, it interested me to investigate how the city s élite, in the name of an aesthetic and social conception, produces representations and practices of segregation and how this grows and affects the interval of a popular neighborhood. Finally, it deals with the analysis of urban gardening practices, the way the élite and established groups produce Belo Jardim's outcasts, those who are seen and considered as trashy. This research is theoretical and methodologically based on a historic and socioanthropological perspective. / Este trabalho procura analisar a difícil trama de homens e mulheres contemporâneos enredados nas malhas da ambivalência social. As cidades são os lugares por excelência da materialização das tensões e dos conflitos gerados pela dificuldade da convivência com o diferente como alteridade. A despeito das singularidades geográficas, históricas, econômicas e culturais das cidades, visualiza-se com maior ou menor grau processos de segregação sócio-espacial entre indivíduos e grupos sociais, ampliados e ressignificados à luz da mistura de velhos temas e problemas estruturais com as emergências de novas sensibilidades, medos e estigmas trazidos pela modernidade capitalista na sua fase líquida e global. Busca-se, então, apreender a articulação entre processos globais e particularidades locais referentes a tensões e mal-estares causados pela mixofobia a pessoas de localidades consideradas incongruentes com determinado tipo de ordem e civilidade. A cidade de Belo Jardim, no agreste pernambucano, foi o palco de análise destas questões, isto é, interessou-me investigar como as elites da cidade em nome de uma dada concepção estética e social produzem representações e práticas de segregação e como isto se ramifica e atinge os interstícios de um bairro popular. Enfim, trata-se da análise das práticas de jardinagem urbana, de como a elite e grupos de estabelecidos produzem os refugados do Belo Jardim, ou seja, aqueles que são vistos e apreciados como suas ervas daninhas. Esta pesquisa está teórica e metodologicamente apoiada numa perspectiva histórica e sócio-antropológica.

This diploma work analyses recreation in the cabins, gardening, working on personal plots and wine making in the district of Hodonín. First of all, it deals with cabin typology and properties in the gardens, private plots and vineyards, which are not used for staying in (arbours). These investigated properties used for recreation form summer settlements {--} used for staying in or other purpose {--} arboured or both, settlements of different types. These typologies we apply to territorial charting of cabins, arbours and their settlements in Hodonín district. (There have been charted 5 376 cabins and 4 939 arbours). The diploma work contains the summary of enviromental problems and those connected with territorial planning and other activities mentioned above.

There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that community based horticultural projects can be effective interventions for people experiencing mental health difficulties. Such programmes have been shown to provide a wide range of benefits, including increased confidence and self-esteem, improved mood, extended social networks as well as the development of new skills and a circadian rhythm. Whilst there is now considerable evidence demonstrating the beneficial outcomes of group gardening, there is a lack of understanding as to how psychological processes that contribute towards therapeutic outcomes might be affected by these interventions. This study explored experiences of community gardening programmes in order to better understand how attendance may affect the psychological health of people experiencing mental distress. In particular, it sought to understand the impact of nature on psychological experience during group attendance. Eleven people experiencing mental health difficulties were interviewed about their experiences of attending community gardening groups. The study adopted an ethnomethodological approach to constructionist grounded theory, in order to develop a framework within which participant experiences could be understood. Findings suggested that key processes of feeling safe, letting go, (re-)connecting and finding place provided mechanisms of positive psychological change. Fundamental to each process were changes in construal of, and relationships with, others, nature and importantly, the self, within the gardening group contexts. An increased sense of identification with other people and non-human nature, and the development of empathy and compassion, appeared to be key psychological processes which may account for the positive impact on participants’ mental health. Directions for future research and implications for future clinical interventions are suggested.

This investigation of social learning processes in the Chipembere gardening project was conducted in Rockvale village one in Sebakwe communal area in the Midlands province of Zimbabwe. In essence, the study sought to explore how the Chipembere gardening project as a community-based natural resource management initiative (CBNRM), was reflecting and supporting social learning processes of change. It also sought to enrich and deepen an organizational understanding of social learning and to generate ideas and draw recommendations that could be used to strengthen learning in other CBNRM projects. The research was undertaken as a qualitative case study with data generated through semi-structured interviews with individuals and groups. It also included an analysis of project documents and an extended period of participant observation on site and in the gardening activities. Data were indexed and coded for generating analytical memos that were used to extract and represent the scope of social learning interations within the developing project. The study found that within the Chipembere gardening project a wide range of learning interactions were significant in shaping the developing project. Furthermore, these interactions were earmarked as the major drivers of social learning processes within the project. The study concluded that the social learning interactions amongst the gardeners in the Chipembere community garden were instrumental in fostering change that enhanced community livelinhoods and wellbeing.

The waterfront community of Sydhavn in Copenhagen, Denmark is architecturally praised, but also criticized for its lack of public green space. Residents in the area have self-organized a community gardening initiative to combat this lack of greenery. The thesis aims to explore this occurrence by providing an analysis of the attitudes and behaviors towards social and environmental aspects of sustainability and individual residents’ resistance or support towards community gardening initiatives. The research design is based on quantitative methods with an exploratory purpose, using an online survey methodology. The main findings show that there is an association among knowledge of sustainability concepts, sustainable attitudes and behaviors, and interest in community gardening participation in the study population. Moreover, individuals who indicate no interest in community gardening lack a desire to join in the future, although they may be encouraged to do so with more education and advertisement. Generally, the study population feels positively towards community gardening and feels there is a need for it in the area. Further research may investigate aspects such as politics and policies related to community gardening and replicate a similar study in a different sociodemographic context to see how the results differ. The results of this study have practical implications for academics, built environment practitioners, and community gardening organizers.

This project was created to encourage educators to establish school site gardens. Gardens provide the opportunity to introduce environmental topics, and can become hands-on learning centers for subjects across the course of study.

Master's thesis deals with the Red Hill, a place situated inside the urban area of Brno, close to the historic center, close to the newly established and still growing campus of Masaryk University. Red hill with its gardening colony remains blank space on the map of Brno, the goal here was to create a functional urban structure that would place the space in the city map. Not to make an urban mash on the peripherals, but build a real city organism into the hearth of the city Brno.

The aim of this diploma paper is to design and implement a system of heating and irrigation. The system was designed for the premises of the garden shop located in Nové Město na Moravě. The new system shall replace the existing one as well as eliminate the use of human resources. The irrigation is done through a system of water pumps implemented in each of four green-houses. The heating is achieved through a system of hot air devices, and uses water as a transfer medium. The water is heated in a boiler using the new generation of solid propellants. The boiler is supplemented by solar collectors placed on the roof of the shop premises. The process is controlled by one of the programmable automatic devices made by Siemens, namely the S7-200 model. Temperature and humidity sensors are responsible for collection of the data. The paper also describes the technologies used and considered, the development environment and the construction components.