Teaching Gardens: Growing a Healthier Community
Farming and gardening, foundational to healthy eating, are enigmas in today's society. Many young people have no idea how food is grown. Adults don’t understand the value of whole, unprocessed fruits or vegetables or how to create meals with unprocessed foods. Fast food options and processed foods have become staples for most Americans, even more so in “food deserts”, communities that lack access to groceries and fresh produce. To address the social, physical and health challenges these dynamics exacerbate, school and community focused leadership are turning to gardens as an innovative teaching tool.
The act of gardening connects individuals to nature and others (1). Studies find associations between gardening with an increased consumption of fruits and vegetables (2) for the gardeners as well as their families. Gardens provide access to produce that can otherwise be too expensive for some families, thus making them a great tool for addressing food insecurity (2). Mounting evidence suggests physical activity during gardening can lower the risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes, obesity and heart disease (4). Gardens offer fun, educational, stress reducing, productive and important environments for community growth and positive transformation (3), as these case stories from grants provided by the Ardmore Institute of Health (AIH) illustrate.
The garden projects highlighted in this article share options and information on how to start a garden project for a family, school or community.
Garden Project Case Stories
Growing Places - Teaching Gardens 4K: STEM Curriculum for Students
Organizational Overview
Growing Places was founded in 2001 as a private nonprofit organization. The organization donated raised-bed vegetable gardens to low-income people in North Central Massachusetts in response to the high levels of poverty, hunger, food insecurity, health disparities and limited access to fresh, affordable and healthy food in the region. Over the past 16 years, their work has expanded to focus on long-term, sustainable changes in their community by increasing fresh food access while considering environmental sustainability. A tool Growing Places developed was teaching gardens that are used in local school systems to help meet the nonprofit’s goals.
Project Goal
The goal of the teaching garden initiative was to test the use of a garden environment to create a proven, adaptable STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) curriculum model for 6-12 year old students that would increase student knowledge and wellbeing. The STEM curriculum could then be used and replicated in other schools and learning environments.
Project Overview & Outcomes
Using grant funding from Ardmore Institute of Health, Growing Places partnered with Boston University’s Nutrition Department to revise an after school garden and nutrition program. The curriculum would be used within the STEM curriculum by local schools during the year.
The garden and nutrition program was revamped to be culturally sensitive, provide lesson flexibility for teachers, incorporate age-appropriate skill building and encourage healthy eating behaviors. The curriculum includes hands-on, didactic, and playful learning and covers topics such as: plant life cycles, soil vs aeroponics, food as fuel, eating the rainbow, portion sizes and food groups, produce mapping, a tour of the cafeteria and school of nutrition, cooking a recipe together, food waste and vermicomposting, along with games to test information retention.
One key challenge to using teaching gardens during the school year is that students are out on summer break in the summertime, when most plants mature and ripen outdoors. Anticipating this obstacle, the program adopted the use of an aeroponic indoor Tower Garden to make growing plants and harvesting crops accessible to students during the school year.
As a result of the initial project, Teaching Gardens 4K impacted 300 children through 56 lesson hours. Students grew pounds of leafy greens, decreased produce waste in the school café by 5% and consumed 1500 fruits and vegetables; a 25% increase over the span of the program. In addition, 96% of students were able to correctly identify processed and unprocessed foods, 100% of the students prepared a simple recipe using produce grown and 50% of parents said their kids have tried new nutrient-rich foods as a result of the class. The different experiences helped shape and create a highly adaptable model and six teachers were trained on how to use the curriculum in the future.
The curriculum is a 10-week goal based Teaching Gardens 4K program that integrates STEM disciplines, cultural competency, healthy eating, nutrition and gardening education for youth ages 6-12 years. A position was created for a Leader and Garden Guide so that Teaching Gardens 4K can be replicated in any community and school nationwide. The curriculum is available for reapplication for training and teaching in different learning environments.
Best Practice to Replicate
A garden can be used as a hands-on teaching lab year-round to increase student knowledge and wellness. You can do so by creating your own STEM curriculum using a Tower Garden, or by contacting Growing Places regarding the use of the Teaching Gardens 4K curriculum developed through AIH grant funding.
Midland Memorial Hospital Community Garden - Farming In a Desert
Organization Overview
Midland Memorial Foundation was established in 1945 by community volunteers committed to building the first hospital in Midland, Texas. In 2016, with funds from the community and Ardmore Institute of Health, Midland Memorial Hospital Community Garden was established to inspire Midland citizens to engage in healthy lifestyle behaviors. One challenge they had to overcome was the desert-like soil and climate which makes growing food difficult.
Project Goal
The goal of the project was to make healthy plant foods available to lower income families in the area, while also providing social connection and gardening education.
Project Overview & Outcomes
The Midland Memorial Foundation received funding to build the gardens with a well and water harvesting tank to provide irrigation for the approximately 13,000 sq. ft. space. The garden features individual plots, keyhole gardens and wheelchair-accessible raised planters. Gardeners pay a small fee for their garden plot and are encouraged to grow year-round. Like many other community gardens, gardeners must maintain their plot and help keep up the common grounds. They are also required to participate in a few scheduled group sessions per year. This promotes a sense of community and creates a learning and mentoring atmosphere where more experienced gardeners share their skills. Additionally, participants have the opportunity to attend workshops from Master Gardeners to learn best practices and solutions to overcoming gardening challenges.
The Midland Memorial Hospital Community Garden now provides the opportunity for 39 families (per year) to participate in the community garden run by volunteers from both the hospital and community. These families and volunteers work independently and together to grow fresh produce for their families and members of the community, year-round.
Best Practice to be Replicated
Hospitals can extend their community outreach by supporting community/teaching gardens. Locating a community garden in a “food desert” can amplify impact. Practical initial aspects like equipping a community garden with a reliable water source is crucial to growing produce, and is a simple way to transform non-arable land into an area to grow healthy food.
Ardmore Adventist Academy - Farm to Market Start-Up
Organizational Overview
Ardmore Adventist School, a K-12 private education facility in Ardmore, Oklahoma, has a goal to provide the harmonious development of the mental, physical, and spiritual being.
School leadership and staff, realizing a need to have more fresh plant foods available to members in their small rural town in Oklahoma, started planning for the implementation of a school-wide market garden in 2018. The garden would provide student education through hands-on experiences, improve community health by providing a place for the community to learn more about healthy living, and become a research laboratory to teach the link between soil health and human health.
Project Goals
This was a multi-phase project with two main goals. The first, to provide each student with personal garden space where they learn agriculture lessons, as well as business and industry standards. The second goal is to use a large garden as a health education gathering place for the community through on-site lectures, farm dinners, direct farm-to-door produce delivery and by providing plant plugs for home gardens.
Project Overview and Outcomes
During the first phase of the project, a small plot garden was started by the school gardener and cultivated using students, teachers and community volunteers. The initial garden yielded 229 pounds of produce from 700 sq.ft., and a watermelon field that produced approximately 8000 pounds of watermelon. All watermelon was donated to individuals in the Ardmore, OK community to build awareness of the garden, and become a source for fresh produce in the community during the growing season. The watermelon giveaway enabled the school to open up two market stands, where they sold the produce, with funds from sales going back into funding the garden.
The garden grew to include demo plots used by students to learn lessons in science, including soil and plant health, the life cycle of plants and harvesting. Food grown in the school garden was used to create cafeteria food students enjoyed at lunch. There was a notable increase in positive attitude towards consuming vegetables that the students helped grow.
In addition to augmenting the scientific curriculum, the marketing of the garden allowed students to learn important economic concepts, including: monetary transactions, supply and demand, cost analysis, pricing of produce, and the use of garden profits to purchase additional tools and supplies for the garden.
After this first phase, the Ardmore Institute of Health provided a matching grant that allowed the school to purchase additional equipment, tools and materials, including a greenhouse kit and an irrigation system. This phase 2 of the project provided learning best practices for increasing yield from the six (6) 25ft by 75ft garden plots and flower garden.
The school uses the garden as a community outreach program utilizing its Facebook page where available produce can be ordered; educational opportunities; and its two markets - one in the middle of town, the other at the school site. The garden offers tours where community members can learn more about gardening best practices, and tasting demos - teaching community members how to cook tasty dishes with food they’re otherwise unfamiliar with. The next phase is seeding projects to provide community members with starter plants they can grow in their own home gardens.
Best Practices to Replicate
A big project can start small and be broken into phases. Transitioning to a market garden requires a larger production area using weather protected spaces with greenhouses. An initial phase of the garden project can provide produce for fundraising and to raise awareness in the community that can lead to additional funding for the project.
Restore Farms & Bonton Farms - Urban Farm Development Partnerships
Organizational Overview
Restore OKC is a non-profit organization that used approximately 5 acres of land in Northeast Oklahoma City, Ok to develop an urban farm, named Restore Farms. The founders started the foundation to serve the physical, social, emotional, educational and economic needs of neighbors in their community. The foundation saw an 18 year discrepancy in life expectancy of their 90% African-American, 85% single-parent extremely low income neighborhood compared to the wider city average and saw food as a starting point to improve health.
In order to make a transformative impact, Restore OKC created a multi prong approach to enriching the community via Restore Farms, Restore Home, Restore Schools and Restore Jobs.
In 2017, Restore Farms partnered with Langston University, Oklahoma State University, USDA, and 4H to sustainably grow healthy food in their community designated as a “food desert” (the only grocery store had closed). In 2018 students began working in the garden, including an aquaponic greenhouse, earning income as well as scholarships to higher education through Langston University. In 2019, more than 20 high school students were employed on the 5 acre farm, producing about 15,000 pounds of produce.
Project Goal
In 2020 Restore Farms requested grant funding from the Ardmore Institute of Health to further scale the farm capacity to full potential, utilizing the expertise and experience of a sister farm, Bonton Farms. The goal was to maximize the ability to produce food available in the community, sell it to stimulate economic development, employ community members, create educational opportunities and give students the much needed incentive to graduate and go on to higher education.
Project Overview and Outcomes
In order to achieve what Restore Farms wanted to accomplish, they broke down the goal into smaller objectives. The following five targets were chosen:
Move toward food justice by creating sustainable access to healthy food in the food desert community.
See lifestyle change as a preferred method for prevention and treatment of chronic, diet-based diseases (diabetes and obesity) in their community.
Create sustainable food systems where Restore Farms is able to grow and supply food for sale within their own community.
Provide a community-owned space that creates jobs.
Create economic development for the Northeast Oklahoma City area.
Using the example, expertise and help provided by Bonton Farms, Restore Farms was able to improve infrastructure to sustainably increase food production to a level where it can supply a substantial amount of food to its own community. Increased production at the farm allowed Restore OKC to negotiate pricing of items grown on the farm with a local grocer in the area, making fresh produce available and more affordable for the lower income neighborhood.
In 2021 Restore Farms opened the Eastside Market, a new grocery store in the area providing healthy food at lower cost. The Eastside Market also provides classroom space. They are utilizing this space to offer classes in lifestyle medicine and educate attendees on how to address chronic, diet related diseases such as heart disease and diabetes with positive lifestyle changes. Educational materials are provided by Ardmore Institute of Health (using free Full Plate Living curriculum) and Lynn Institute.
Recently, Restore Farms opened a second store, this time a micro-grocer called The Market at Restore OKC. Hot meals are available for grab-and-go, healthy cooking classes are taught and the store offers fresh produce and grocery essentials. Job and volunteer opportunities have been created and the store helps solve food access challenges for those living in the area. Increased productivity at the farm and the opening of two grocery stores have added more than 60 jobs in the community.
Best Practices to Replicate
Partnerships can help solve large community challenges. Look for and connect with other organizations that are working to solve food insecurity and inequality in your community to elevate your project’s impact. Tap into free healthy lifestyle resources, such as Full Plate Living to offer healthy living educational materials and classes in conjunction with your garden projects.
Loma Linda University - Model for Community Health Workers in Community Gardens: Produce Rx
Organizational Overview
Loma Linda University Health is a faith-based academic institution that for over 100 years, has been at the forefront of wellness research and care with an inspired quest “to make man whole.”
A program created by Loma Linda University Health is a model for working with Community Health Care Workers (CHCW) in areas where the average income is very low. The CHCW helps to improve health and wellness in a community by providing resources, linking community members to programs available to them, and providing follow-up activities and reminders advised by a medical team. In 2020 Loma Linda University Health tested a pilot program to look at the immediate impact and results of placing a CHCW to actively work in a community garden where healthy food prescriptions written by local clinicians, can be “filled”.
Project Goal
The goal of the project (Produce RX) was to look at the immediate impact a CHCW would have when active in a community garden where prescriptions for healthy food are made by medical experts. Also, to assess the impact that the presence of a CHCW has on the consumption of fresh produce, as well as long-term understanding of nutrition.
Project Overview and Outcomes
In 2020 Loma Linda University Health received funding from Ardmore Institute of Health to pilot the Produce Rx project, changing the focus from only prescribing drugs, to including prescribing lifestyle solutions for health concerns such as diabetes, hypertension and obesity. During this project, a local clinic wrote prescriptions for Produce RX which would serve as a referral into the program. CHCWs would then make sure participants were given a spot in the community garden and organized workshops as well as fresh produce box drop offs and other lifestyle related community activities. The CHCW served as a bridge between the providers and gardeners to increase prescription compliance.
For this project Loma Linda University used an existing community garden named Jardin de Salud. The CHCW had two functions in the community – they worked with gardeners and networked with other local health systems.
Within the garden, CHCW used hands-on methods to help gardeners understand their prescription for lifestyle interventions, such as eating more fruits and vegetables, increasing their activity and addressing stress to improve mental health. They helped garden members tackle health concerns such as diabetes, hypertension, and obesity. Community members working with Produce Rx indicated a noticeable increase in physical activity, healthier eating habits, stress management, and increased motivation. Participants ascribed their health improvements and weight loss to group workshops, group hikes, garden cooking classes and community support. Additionally, participants shared the knowledge gained as well as farmed produce with friends and neighbors, encouraging them to participate in the community garden.
Through networking with other local health systems, CHCWs were able to build and maintain awareness of the program and create avenues of referral to the program. Through this process they were able to identify barriers to participation and worked with partners to identify solutions that would increase participation in the future, creating a model that can be replicated across the country.
Best Practices to Replicate
A natural synergy exists between Community Health Care Workers and community gardens that can be used as a learning lab to improve preventive health efforts. Where Community Health Care Workers are not available, work with trusted local experts to provide educational health talks, host walks, teach cooking classes and gardening best practices that increase the health and wellbeing of garden and community members.
Millwood Public Schools - Junior Master Gardener Program
Organization overview
Millwood Public School is a PK-12 district with an enrollment of over 1000 students in Oklahoma City, OK. The school began strongly emphasizing science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) curriculum, and sought creative and innovative ways to introduce theoretical concepts to students. A Junior Master Gardener class project was proposed as one option and administrators asked Ardmore Institute of Health to provide grant funding to help support the Millwood Project.
Project Goal
The goal of the program was to transform technical topics such as photosynthesis and the life cycle of insects into tangible knowledge all students could understand.
Project Overview and Outcomes
The Millwood garden includes a variety of flowering and edible plants and trees. Raised beds surround a covered pavilion that is used for outdoor classroom space. It is in this outdoor space that students are introduced to science topics, after which they get to put their newfound knowledge to practice in the raised bed “live laboratory.” Students look forward to their time in the garden, where they get to plant, water, prune, and harvest watermelon, cantaloupe, kale, carrots and lettuce.
Oversight for the school garden is provided by volunteers, including locally-based Master Gardeners, in concert with the class teacher. These volunteers provide guidance and training along with the teacher, keeping the instructor-to-student ratio low as the students learn the fundamentals of gardening. Students provide most of the labor during the school year (watering, weeding, planting and pruning), while volunteers oversee the garden in the offseason to ensure it continues to thrive.
Best Practice to be Replicated
Work with a Master Gardener in your area during the planning stages of the project and beyond. Their knowledge and experience will reduce the number of errors and will assist in creating a sustainable garden faster and more efficiently.
Learnings Grown from These Projects
There are many projects going on in communities throughout the US. To get involved, look for Master Gardener clubs in your area, school gardening programs, agricultural extension services in the community and from local universities, or community gardens in your town.
If you’re starting your own community or teaching garden, remember:
It’s possible to start a garden project almost anywhere
Small gardens can be highly productive and address food access challenges
Experts can jump-start a gardening project - don’t be afraid ask for volunteers
Gardening engages kids and adults of all ages
Pooling local community resources available (expertise, resources, or health systems) will greatly magnify the impact on the community
You don’t have to start a teaching garden on your own. Check out some of the resources below for starting points for any type of garden. Remember to reach out to those resources in your area to find other like minded individuals. You’re likely to find just the help you’re looking for.
How to Start a School, Community or Backyard Garden Project
The case stories above provide insight into different ways to start or get involved in a teaching garden project. Below are links to resources and simple steps that can be followed to start a school, community or backyard garden.
Start a small garden by growing cooking herbs in a container on a porch or deck. The American Horticultural Society has been providing help to novice and experienced gardeners for the last 100 years. If you have a large back yard, start a raised bed garden. Try this Gardening Channel guide which provides help every step of the way.
If you have indoor space and would like to delve into hydroponic gardening, check out this article as a starting point. You can also consider a Tower Garden using aeroponics.
To bring a STEM teaching garden curriculum to your school, contact Out Teach for teacher and school administrator training on using school gardens as STEM teaching labs.
To start a community garden in your area, follow the steps outlined by the Noble Research Institute, a leading agricultural research organization. The USDA also offers a vast array of resources and funding opportunities.
If you’re passionate about improving the health of your community, start a garden. Better yet, make it a teaching garden, and invite others to join. It’s a simple, yet impactful way to improve the health and knowledge of everyone participating.
References
Soga, M., Gaston, K. J., & Yamaura, Y. (2016). Gardening is beneficial for health: A meta-analysis. Preventive medicine reports, 5, 92–99. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmedr.2016.11.007https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5153451/
Sweet, C., Ward, J.,Hinds, B., Jarvandi, S. Department of Family and Consumer Sciences University of Tennessee Extension. “Addressing Food Insecurity: Expanding Access Through Community Gardens.” Available at: https://extension.tennessee.edu/publications/Documents/W1021D.pdf
Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (2022). Cornell Garden Based Learning Key Findings. Available at: https://gardening.cals.cornell.edu/program-tools/benefits-and-research/key-findings/ https://extension.tennessee.edu/publications/Documents/W1021D.pdf
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2020). Physical activity prevents chronic disease. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/resources/infographic/physical-activity.htm
