Child obesity has become a national concern. Obesity in children ages 6-17 has more than doubled in the past 30 years. Only 20% of children today consume the recommended daily servings of fruits and vegetables. This trend is even more pronounced in minority populations. Past studies have reported that a horticulture-based curriculum, including gardening, can improve children's attitudes toward eating fruits and vegetables. To investigate whether children of a minority population can benefit from gardening supplemented with a curriculum on nutrition, research was conducted with elementary schools in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas (Hidalgo County). Elementary school teachers participating in this research agreed to have school gardens and complete all activities in a curriculum on nutrition provided to them through the Texas Extension Service. One hundred forty one children in the participating schools completed a pre- and posttest evaluating their attitudes and snack preferences toward fruits and vegetables and their knowledge before and after gardening supplemented with information on nutrition. Statistically significant differences were detected between pre- and posttest scores for all three variables. After comparing pre-and posttest scores, it was concluded that gardening with supplemental instruction, had a positive effect on all three variables including students attitudes and snack preferences toward fruits and vegetables and their knowledge of nutrition.

The newly built Dell Children’s Medical Center in Austin, Texas was designed with an understanding of the healing power of nature. A perspective randomized design with pre-post measures Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE) was conducted to test whether the hospital’s Healing Garden had an effect on the stress levels of parents of pediatric hospital patients. Participants were asked to sit and relax in the Healing Garden for ten-minutes. Two differing interior spaces, one with views to nature and one without views to nature, were tested as comparisons. Data was collected in the form of surveys and behavioral observation. Results indicate that the Healing Garden reduced the stress of parents at a greater rate than the two interior spaces included in the study. However, the two interior spaces did not differ in their stress reducing effects despite one having views to nature. Comments from parents indicated a slight stress relieving effect by simply leaving their patient’s room. These research findings should be used to encourage parents and other adult family members to use the hospital’s gardens to reduce stress felt from their patient’s medical treatment. Further studies need to be conducted to provide more conclusive data.

Detta arbete handlar om hur teorier om offentlig gestaltning av bostadsgårdar, miljöpsykologi och corporate garden kan hjälpa till med verktyg för gestaltningen av en trädgård med flera funktioner; näringsverksamhet i form av Hotell- och Restaurangrörelse samt privat boende. Litteraturstudier genomfördes i ovan nämnda områden och ägarnas önskemål samlades in via enkät, mail korrespondens och samtal vid besök på platsen. Då noterades även platsens förutsättningar och de delar av tomten som skulle gestaltas mättes upp. Den samlade informationen har sedan resulterat i ett designförslag som omfattar fem platser i trädgården. Dessa platser representerar områden som betecknas som privata, halvprivata, halvoffentliga samt en del som representerar en corporate garden.

The pavilion structure has been an integral part of Persianate gardens since its earliest appearance at the Achaemenid garden in Pasargadae (sixth century BC). Despite its significance, the scholarly focus on the study of gardens has somewhat sidelined the study of the pavilions and even neglected the cultural context of the development of the pavilions. The pavilion as a theme appears after the maturation of the concept of paradise as a garden in Near Eastern mythological and religious texts. The Quran is the first known text that integrated the two concepts of pavilion and garden in the imaginary paradise. Later, Persian poetry defines specific relationships between human beings, pavilions, and gardens while stressing the psychological and material values of pavilions and gardens. Three types of resources were consulted to reconstruct the image of pavilion: literary documents (including mythology and poetry), different types of art (ranging from painting to carpets), and historical accounts. Referring to these allows us to explore the diversity of the pavilion's image in each medium and its degree of correspondence to reality. This dissertation explores the diversity of the pavilion (tent, kiosk, or building), its spatial, formal, and functional relationship with gardens as a flexible entity, and its cultural use. The historical accounts discussed in this dissertation prove the existence of buildings in gardens, the common use of tents as temporary residences, gender specificity of pavilions, and the multi-functionality of gardens for encampments, administrative affairs, and pilgrimages. The pavilion as building is well documented in both visual and literary media. While poetry draws a clear boundary between the garden and building as separate entities, painting merges or separates the building and garden (as courtyard or planted area) physically, formally, and symbolically. The building in poetry is usually associated with the materialistic world, whereas the garden is often associated with the ideal world. This is, to some extent, visible in paintings in which the geometrical design of the building and the courtyard acts as a reference to the material world. The frequent reference to iwan as a consistent design element in painting and travelers' accounts proves its significance as an intermediate space between inside and outside the pavilion as a building. Tents in gardens appear less frequently in poetry and painting than they do in textual sources. On the other hand, historical documents rarely point to kiosks or semi-open spaces in gardens, whereas kiosks are widely developed in paintings. The examination of paintings also reveals formal and functional similarities between the throne and kiosk. The kiosk appears in close physical and visual contact with natural components of gardens, and even serves as a connector between the garden and building. The pavilion as a kiosk is, however, to a large extent absent in poetry and historical documents probably due to the dominant interest in buildings. This research proves the dominant cultural view on the functional flexibility of Persianate gardens between the 14th and 18th centuries in using pavilion structures varying in form, function, and scale.

Brownfields have an important impact on health. They can influence physical health by increasing risk for health hazards such as the potential for injury hazards, disease transmission, or exposure to chemicals. They can also influence social health determinants like neighborhood level social capital or behavioral risk factors. Reusing brownfields for community gardens reduces environmental hazards and associated health hazards. It further promotes public health, and sustainable quality environment. Community gardens increase nutrition access, especially for many in low income populations, and community aesthetic. They also strengthen social cohesion and create recreational or therapeutic opportunities for a community, becoming part of the urban green space network. Special care must be taken to protect public health when reusing a brownfield for a community garden, like sampling for chemicals, cleaning up soil, and using protective garden designs. The overall benefit to the community is worth the initial investment required.

The newly built Dell Children’s Medical Center in Austin, Texas was designed with an understanding of the healing power of nature. A perspective randomized design with pre-post measures Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE) was conducted to test whether the hospital’s Healing Garden had an effect on the stress levels of parents of pediatric hospital patients. Participants were asked to sit and relax in the Healing Garden for ten-minutes. Two differing interior spaces, one with views to nature and one without views to nature, were tested as comparisons. Data was collected in the form of surveys and behavioral observation. Results indicate that the Healing Garden reduced the stress of parents at a greater rate than the two interior spaces included in the study. However, the two interior spaces did not differ in their stress reducing effects despite one having views to nature. Comments from parents indicated a slight stress relieving effect by simply leaving their patient’s room. These research findings should be used to encourage parents and other adult family members to use the hospital’s gardens to reduce stress felt from their patient’s medical treatment. Further studies need to be conducted to provide more conclusive data.

Researchers have studied the positive effect of healing outdoor environments on hospitalized children, their family members and staff's health and mood. Consequently many modern hospitals dedicate portions of their space to healing outdoor environments. However, these amenities are underutilized due to various design barriers. This research aimed to identify barriers to garden visitation and introduce design guidelines that encourage garden visitation in pediatric hospitals for all groups. Five Texas pediatric hospital gardens were selected to examine the impact of availability of shade, quality and availability of seats, and presence of the healing nature on user satisfaction and garden use. Behavioral observation, surveys, interviews, and site evaluations were conducted. Gardens were ranked based on design qualities, user satisfaction, and frequency and duration of garden visitation. The primary conclusion of this study was that garden visitors' satisfaction with design is positively correlated with presence and quality of hypothesis variables. Duration and frequency of garden visitation also increased in gardens with better shading, seating options, and planting. Other factors identified as influential in increasing garden use included availability of amenities for children and playfulness of design layout. The research findings were instrumental in introducing new design guidelines for future hospital garden design projects. In addition, they served to statistically support design guidelines suggested by previous researchers.

Flow disruption resulting from interactions between currents and abrupt topography can have important consequences for biological processes in the ocean. A highresolution three-dimensional hydrodynamic model is used to study topographically influenced flow at the Flower Garden Banks, two small but thriving coral reef ecosystems in the northwest Gulf of Mexico. Flow past the modeled banks is characterized by vortex shedding, turbulent wake formation and strong return velocities in the near-wake regions. The speed of the oncoming current, strength of water-column stratification, and level of topographic detail used in the model each serve to modulate these basic flow characteristics. Larval retention and dispersal processes at the Flower Garden Banks, and specifically the dependence of these processes on the nature of flow disruption, are explored by coupling a Lagrangian particle-tracking algorithm to the hydrodynamic model. Passive particles released from the tops of the modeled banks as mimics of coral larvae can remain trapped in the wake regions very close to the banks on time scales of hours to days, depending primarily on the speed of the free-stream current. Most particles are swept quickly downstream, however, where their trajectories are most strongly influenced by the topography of the continental shelf. Modeled dispersal patterns suggest that there is an ample supply of larvae from the Flower Garden Banks to nearby oil and gas platforms, which can provide suitable benthic habitat for corals. The flow disturbances generated by the modeled banks result in the mixing of nutrients from deeper water into shallower, nutrient-depleted layers in the wakes of the banks. The ability of the planktonic system to respond to such an injection of nutrients is tested by embedding a simple nutrient-phytoplankton-zooplankton ecosystem model into the hydrodynamic model. Plankton biomass in the flow-disturbed wakes is shown to increase in response to the additional nutrients. This study shows how flow-topography interactions at the Flower Garden Banks can exert critical control over local larval transport processes and plankton dynamics. More generally, it demonstrates the usefulness and feasibility of using numerical models as tools to uncover important mechanisms of physical-biological interaction in the ocean.

Child obesity has become a national concern. Obesity in children ages 6-17 has more than doubled in the past 30 years. Only 20% of children today consume the recommended daily servings of fruits and vegetables. This trend is even more pronounced in minority populations. Past studies have reported that a horticulture-based curriculum, including gardening, can improve children's attitudes toward eating fruits and vegetables. To investigate whether children of a minority population can benefit from gardening supplemented with a curriculum on nutrition, research was conducted with elementary schools in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas (Hidalgo County). Elementary school teachers participating in this research agreed to have school gardens and complete all activities in a curriculum on nutrition provided to them through the Texas Extension Service. One hundred forty one children in the participating schools completed a pre- and posttest evaluating their attitudes and snack preferences toward fruits and vegetables and their knowledge before and after gardening supplemented with information on nutrition. Statistically significant differences were detected between pre- and posttest scores for all three variables. After comparing pre-and posttest scores, it was concluded that gardening with supplemental instruction, had a positive effect on all three variables including students attitudes and snack preferences toward fruits and vegetables and their knowledge of nutrition.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1980.