Date of Award

Spring 2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Education Policy, Planning, and Administration

Committee Chairperson

Mimi Staulters, PhD

Committee Member

Paul Morgan, PhD

Committee Member

Jeanie Subach, PhD

Abstract

School gardening has been connected to improving student nutritional knowledge (Landry et al., 2021; Leuven et al., 2018), academics (Eugenio-Gozalbo et al., 2020), and pro-environmental attitudes (Zelenika et al., 2018; Chang, 2015). Caring for plants in the garden fosters a positive and caring relationship with plants, allowing students to see themselves as a part of the natural world and promoting environmentally active stances in adulthood (Kalvaitis & Monhardt, 2012; Chawla, 2007). This exploratory sequential mixed methods study explored the scope of how school gardening programs are being utilized across a county in Pennsylvania to promote student community involvement, how food bank partnerships impact student engagement in the garden, and to gain an understanding of the experiences of school garden coordinators who partner with the county food bank. The first phase of this study examined the perspectives of school garden coordinators who partner with the county food bank through interviews and observations at their garden sites. The findings of these interviews and observations were then utilized to develop a qualitative and quantitative survey that was administered to a larger sample. The goal of the survey was to analyze whether school gardens can promote student involvement with food bank programs. The study findings indicate that school garden coordinators held mostly positive experiences with the food bank partnership and perceived the food bank partnership to positively impact student engagement in the garden, sharing a positive relationship between garden involvement and student involvement in their local communities.

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