Taylor, Carl (author), Symon, Elizabeth B. (author), Dabbs, Amy (author), Way, Alexander (author), Thompson, Olivia M. (author), and Center for Livable Communities
7 pages., Via online journal., South Carolina public schools consistently rank low in academic performance. In addition, 39% of elementary, 40% of middle, and 30% of high school students within the state are classified as overweight or obese. School garden-based learning (GBL) is a low-cost and high-impact initiative that addresses both poor academic performance and childhood obesity. This study examined how school-based gardens, as part of a pilot farm-to-school (FtS) initiative, are administered and used within academic and cafeteria meal programs. An online survey was developed and sent to 102 educators who previously completed an online training course entitled School Gardening for South Carolina Educators during the 2012–15 academic school years. Data were collected from 37 educators (36% response rate). Survey results indicate that the majority of these educators, although they completed the training course, were unaware that their garden was a component of an FtS program. Moreover, gardens were not integrated with school-wide programs, especially in the cafeteria: most gardens did not contribute food to the cafeteria and meals offered most often did not align with plants learned about in the gardens. Successes of the pilot program were that the majority of educators started and maintained their garden for over 1 year and they were able to use their gardens during the day for academic instruction in multiple disciplines, including math, science, and nutrition.
