Timeline

Daniel Blaustein-Rejto Center for Environmental Studies, Brown University

“Cultivating Hope”: Evaluating Capacity in a Collaborative School Garden Program at John Hope Settlement House

Conclusions At this juncture, it is critical to define the long term goals and plans for Cultivating Hope. Efforts to do so should take into account the teachers’ collective goals and values, as well as the contextual opportunities and barriers defined here. Considering that significant barriers were associated with the collaborative relationship with Brown, Cultivating Hope and similar programs need to carefully balance assistance from partner institutions with reliance on them. Seeking a diversity of funding sources to pay a manager while still engaging stident volunteers is one recommended strategy for doing this.

Context Established in 2011, Cultivating Hope is an edible school garden program that has been collaboratively conceived, planned, implemented and managed by John Hope Settlement House (JHSH) and Brown University students. JHSH is a multi-service, non-profit community center located in a low-income and ethnically diverse neighborhood of Providence, RI. The center is located approximately 1.5 miles from Brown’s campus and is adjacent to a USDA “food desert”. Cultivating Hope largely works with the center’s Jo-Ann McDowell Early Learning Center (ELC), which provides childcare, preschool, and kindergarten education.

Introduction Many educational edible school garden programs have recently been founded with goals ranging from providing experiential environmental education to improving student nutrition to increasing food access (Ozer, 2007; Allen, 2006; Desmond et al., 2004) . Many are predicated on the realization of certain benefits for students, some of which have been quantitatively documented by researchers. However, the rationale and efficacy of these programs vary. The context in which such a program operates shapes its goals as well as its capacity to achieve them.

Acknowledgments Much gratitude to my thesis advisor, Kathryn De Master, to my second reader ,Jennifer Lindsay; to Lily Matthews, The Center for Environmental Studies, The Swearer Center for Public Service at Brown University, John Hope Settlement House and the Early Learning Center teachers for their enduring guidance and support.

Research Focus I aimed to discover and describe the opportunities and barriers that shape the efficacy of Cultivating Hope. Since the program currently lacks official goals, I sought to uncover the collective implicit goals and values of the ELC teachers regarding the program. I then questioned how the program’s physical, institutional, financial and demographic context influenced the efficacy of the program in achieving these goals. Given that the Swearer Center, the program’s current sponsor, has a focus on participatory community engagement, I also researched the degree to which decision-making within Cultivating Hope included the participation of ELC teachers, students and families, as well as Brown students.

In general I practiced Participatory Action Research, observing, participating in, reflecting on and enacting change within Cultivating Hope. Specifically, I engaged in participant observation for eight months. During the spring of 2011, I helped with the initial planning and construction of the school garden. That summer and autumn, I managed the garden and led garden activities with different classes. During my involvement, I kept a research notebook to record quotes, events and other observations. I also

conducted semi-structured topical interviews with seven ELC faculty and staff members in the autumn, approximately five months after implementation of Cultivating Hope began. This mixed methods approach sought neither “distance nor immersion, but dialogue” to generate understanding (Burawoy, 1989: 4). The overarching themes from my field notes and interviews clarified the collective goals of the teachers, as well as the opportunities and barriers to achieving these goals, and may inform future action within the program.

Methods

Results

Rat

iona

le

Con

text

E

ffica

cy

Other Gardens’ Goals ELC Teachers’ Goals • Changes in student nutrition and weight • Psychological and developmental benefits of exposure to outdoors nature • Improved academic performance

• Attracting new families • Family involvement: Parents should “see just what their child is doing” • Gardening and biology education

Opportunities Barriers

• Geographic: Central, community-oriented location • Financial: External funding • Organizational: Brown garden managers

• Organizational: Brown student volunteer services • Institutional: Some ELC teacher engagement with Brown student initiatives

• Demographic: Families’ lack of time and money for involvement • Financial: No long-term funding

• Geographic and organizational: Lack of Brown students’ familiarity with Cultivating Hope • Institutional: Poor classroom coordination

• No parent or family participation • Lack of preschool involvement

• Several irregularly scheduled garden-based lessons

• Low level of ELC children’s participation in decision-making

• Mix of parent curiosity and suspicion

• The “kids are crazy about it” • Mixed teacher satisfaction with opportunities to participate

• Garden produce eaten in lunch and brought home

Moving Forward

1.  Collaboratively institutionalize goals and values

2.  Collaboratively create a multi-year site plan embodying the goals and values

3.  Create an equitable garden activities schedule for the ELC

4.  Teach the teachers necessary gardening knowledge and skills

5.  Solicit greater support from ELC families; neighboring residences, non-profits and businesses; and the JHSH administration

6.  Pursue grants to decrease financial dependence on Brown and diversify the sources of support

7.  Employ a part-time program manager or pay a current teacher to cover that responsibility

8.  Purchase or create more compost, most likely through vermicomposting

9.  Beautify, expand and diversify plantings

10. Solicit and incorporate ELC student input into planting choices and layouts

Spring, 2011

Spring, 2012

Further Research Additional evaluation of Cultivating Hope could survey the ELC and Brown students involved about how they value the program. It could also explore the impacts of increased participation in planning by ELC students and teachers.

Shared • Increased opportunities for exposure to outdoors nature • Integrating lessons with the garden

• Increased access to fresh vegetables • Novel opportunities to taste vegetables

Brown students installing garden beds

ELC students and me planting seeds

Picking basil for pesto over the summer

Preparing salad with the summer harvest

Brown and ELC students plant garlic in fall

ELC students show Brown students their vermicomposting bin

Documented Benefits of Programs An increasing number of studies indicate that children’s exposure to outdoors nature can improve their physical and mental health and yet the amount of this exposure is decreasing nationwide (Louv, 2008; Kuo et al., 2006). Edible school garden programs create opportunities for this exposure and also provide students with free fresh vegetables, thereby improving fresh produce availability (Zenk et al., 2011). Depending on the context, they can change students’ food consumption patterns (Habib, 2007; Morris & Zidenberg-Cherr, 2002) and also contribute to greater academic achievement (Lieberman, 1998).

Works Cited: Allen, Patricia and Julie Guthman (2006) “From ‘old school’ to ‘farm-to-school’: Neoliberalization from the ground up” Agriculture and Human Values

23 (4) Burawoy, M (1991) Ethnography Unbound: Power and Resistance in the Modern Metropolis. California: University of California Press Desmond, D., Grieshop, J., & Subramanium, A. (2004). Revisiting garden based learning in basic education. Rome: Food and Agriculture

Organization of the United Nations. Habib, Deb and Kaitlin Doherty (2007), “Beyond the Garden: Impacts of a School Garden Program on 3rd and 4th Graders” Seeds of Solidarity.

Accessed November 16, 2011 http://www.seedsofsolidarity.org/Beyond_the_Garden.pdf Kuo, F.E. and A. Taylor, “Is contact with nature important for healthy child development? State of the evidence” C. Spencer., M. Blades (Eds.), Children

and their environments: Learning, using and designing spaces, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2006. Lieberman, Gerald and Linda Hood, (1998) “Closing the Achievement Gap: Using the Environment as an Integrating Context for Learning,” Executive

Summary: State Education and Environment Roundtable. San Diego, CA. Louv, Richard. The Last Child in the Woods. Algonquin Books, 2008. Morris, Jennifer L, Sheri Zidenberg-Cherr, (2002) “Garden-enhanced nutrition curriculum improves fourth-grade school children's knowledge of

nutrition and preferences for some vegetables”, Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 102(1): 91-93, Ozer, Emily J. (2007) “The effects of school gardens on students and schools: Conceptualization and considerations for maximizing healthy

development” Health Education & Behavior. 34(846) Zenk, S. N., A. M. Odoms-Young, et al. (2011). ""You have to hunt for the fruits, the vegetables": environmental barriers and adaptive strategies to

acquire food in a low-income African American neighborhood." Health Educ Behav 38(3): 282-292.

• “Kept our food cost down.”