The purpose of this research was to identify the logistical, conceptual, educational, and attitudinal factors that affect elementary school teachers’ implementation of school gardening in the curriculum. This research also sought to qualitatively describe the current application of school gardening by the study population in the elementary school curriculum, and to identify avenues in which the horticultural community can assist teachers in implementing the use of this teaching strategy. The target population consisted of elementary school teachers who taught at schools that had received a Youth Gardening Grant from the National Gardening Association in either the 1994/95 or 1995/96 academic years. Data were collected using a School Gardening Survey which was sent to an accessible population of 315 elementary schools. From this mailing, 236 usable responses were received for analysis. The results of the survey were confirmed, and expanded upon, by personal interviews conducted with 28 teachers from the test population who used school gardening in their curriculum and taught in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Survey and interview responses provided data for statistical analysis using the computer statistic package, Statistical Analysis System (SAS). Chi-square correlations did not provide significant relationships between factors; however, frequencies, averages and mean and mode information provided insight into the use of school gardening and the needs of teachers who are using this teaching strategy. Survey data indicated that the most important factors that need to be present for the successful use of school gardening were logistical factors. The most essential factors were a person, or persons, who take on the responsibility for the gardening program, the availability of a site to grow plants, and adequate funding for gardening materials. In addition, the availability of gardening equipment and the support of the principal were stated to be very important to school gardening success. Interview data indicated that the most crucial factors that need to be present for the successful use of school gardening were educational factors. Student ownership of the gardens and the integration of school gardening into the curriculum were seen as more important to school gardening success than the logistical features of school gardening. There was survey and interview consensus, however, that the lack of preparation time for school gardening activities and the lack of instructional time for learning using school gardening were factors that influence the use of this teaching strategy. There was also agreement that the logistical factors of a growing site, a water source, the availability of gardening equipment, adequate funding, and a person who is responsible for school gardening were important to the successful use of school gardening. Essentially all of the interviewed and surveyed teachers (99%) use school gardening as an interdisciplinary teaching method. It is the interdisciplinary nature of gardening and growing plants that allows school gardening to be used successfully within the elementary school curriculum. Study results also indicated that school gardening is used to teach students in all grade levels found in an elementary school including students in prekindergarten, special education, and 3English as a Second Language2 classes. School gardening is often used to benefit students beyond standard academic achievement. Teachers use school gardening for such goals as social development, therapy, recreation, environmental awareness, community relationships, exploring diversity, and the arts. School gardening is also seen as a teaching strategy that can occur both indoors and outdoors. Teachers are not limiting their concept of gardening to an activity that must occur in the out-of-doors. Teachers indicated that they depend primarily on their own knowledge of gardening when gardening with their students. They also rely more on their gardening knowledge than on their knowledge of science when using school gardening within the curriculum. However, these same teachers expressed a need for further education and information on the integration of gardening into the curriculum, and the horticultural aspects of gardening that can be implemented within the educational, time, facility, funding, and legal limits placed on a school situation. Teachers also requested that this education be provided as in-service training, Master Gardener training, or graduate and/or continuing education classes provided through the local institution of higher education. The survey and interview respondents indicated that school gardening is a very effective, interdisciplinary teaching method. These teachers find that use of school gardening assists students in learning and understanding new ideas, and that student learning improves when using school gardening in the curriculum. In addition, interviewed teachers indicated that students obtain a more positive environmental ethic when gardening is used in the curriculum. Elementary school teachers may use school gardening to improve student academic and social achievement, to provide a hands-on learning experience that reaches across the curriculum, to furnish a forum that provides opportunities to learn such positive social qualities as nurturing life and responsibility, and to encourage students to expand their appreciation for the living world around them. The interdisciplinary nature of school gardening shows promise as a teaching strategy that can be used to enhance student learning, and to expose students to the expanse of learning available through the process of growing plants. / Ph. D.

Canadian urban food security discourses have been explored by academics, local community organizations, practitioners (e.g., health and education) with the intention of understanding the histories and impacts of food insecurity and co-creating long-lasting solutions. In various urban centres, community initiatives and educational institutions have been collaborating on school gardening programs as a way to address food insecurity. Central to these conversations and projects have been how to make more inclusive spaces for people to share their own complex and diverse perspectives of food security—based on their local foodscapes (matrix of relationships between people, place, and food) and cultural worldviews. Pervasive power structures and narratives, however, have privileged certain voices over others and there are limited inquiries into cultural perceptions of food security. Children’s and youth’s own experiences and contributions to the discussion on foodscapes and food security have been marginalized, resulting in a knowledge gap of how young people situate and represent themselves. This research project works to amplify young people’s narratives surrounding their multifaceted relationships to foodscapes within three school gardens located in Treaty Six Territory (Saskatoon, SK). The aim is to make space for the fulsome perspectives and solutions that children and youth offer, as social change agents, towards food security discourses. Adopting a community-based approach, I collaborated with Agriculture in the Classroom Saskatchewan (AITC-SK), the Saskatoon Public School Division (SPSD), children, youth, and their guardians. Co-participants involved in the project included eleven children (between the ages of five and twelve) and seven adults who were connected to the three school gardens. Drawing upon theoretical frameworks rooted in narrative analysis, thematic analysis, and visual participatory action research (VPAR) methodologies, this project practiced meaning-making, which was both collaborative and interdisciplinary. The participating young people used digital cameras to take photographs during four garden workshops facilitated from July to September, 2013. In addition to the workshops, I conducted unstructured interviews with each adult co-participant that contributed to understandings on how children and youth interact with diverse foodways. Children and youth co-participants’ voices, shared in this study, add to current conversations on Saskatoon food security issues—namely the focus on cultural acceptability and accessibility to food. Their oral and visual narratives shed insight into how to re-imagine and expand dominant food security concepts—cultural acceptability and access—to foster inclusive foodscapes. Culturally acceptable foods for young co-participants, for example, was not limited to food products but to cultural relationships infusing foodscapes. Children and youth also blurred boundaries existing in Saskatoon community garden dichotomies of private and public, which had the potential to challenge hegemonic neoliberal views around access. School gardening and food ideologies— steeped in educators’ and program coordinators’ worldviews—were broadened by young people as they reflected upon their garden-based foodways. The inclusion of more children’s and youth’s perspectives on how food security is conceptualized, experienced, and addressed can be used to build greater resiliency in urban school gardening initiatives. By supporting genuine participation of young people in decision-making, alternative actions towards social change can be implemented. / Graduate / skukh075@uvic.ca

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