2014 ASHS Annual Conference

Over the last 20 years, school gardening has become a national movement (Blair 2009).  School gardens provide a critical link between traditional forms of schooling and holistic multi-disciplinary, experiential learning approaches (Williams, 2008).   Gardens provide an atypical environment to the sterile classrooms (Smith & Motsenbocker, 2005). While countless studies have been conducted confirming the many benefits of school gardens, there is a lack of literature exploring promoting a positive gardening attitude. 

The 4-H Seeds for Service School Garden Program is an interdisciplinary garden project designed to educate youth in ten high poverty schools while they serve their community (Fox, 2009).   The purpose of this evaluation was to determine if there is a connection between gardening experience and attitude toward gardening.  A matched pretest-posttest design was used.  Data were collected from student garden participants using a questionnaire developed by Poston, Shoemaker, and Dzewaltowski (2005). This attitude survey probes participants’ sense of competence.  Completed matched questionnaires were obtained from 65% of youth (n=465) participating in the school garden program.

In this survey, males represented a majority (52%) with females at 48%. The largest group of participants (46%) were 6-8th graders followed by 3rd-5th graders with 29%. Almost half of the participants (47%) were Caucasian followed by African Americans at 41%.

When examining gardening attitudes, there was a significant change in attitudes toward gardening, t(299) = 5.52, p < .001, when comparing pre-test to post-test scores.  Participants reported that all gardening experiences had significant relationships to gardening attitude.  Growing a flower, vegetable or herb garden had the strongest relationship with an attitude to garden (r = .433, p < .00) followed by having a family vegetable garden (r = .262, p < .00).

The study found the strongest relationship between a positive gardening attitude and having a garden of any kind.  Based on these results, it’s critical that Extension professionals promote gardening of any kind from container gardening to vegetable gardening to impart a positive attitude towards gardening.  Extension professionals should develop projects that families can do in the garden and with the vegetables, fruit and flowers that are produced in the garden.  A school garden allows students to work in a non-threatening outdoor environment where they can interact and learn about and become interested in gardening.  A school garden can become an integral part of your classroom and can improve student learning.