Mission: To work with urban children, youth and families to learn about, grow and prepare fresh foods, cultivated in an environmentally sustainable manner, in hands-on programs Our vision: Healthy Communities with Edible Learning Gardens Everywhere!

About Me (Sunday Harrison) I started Green Thumbs Growing Kids in 1999, as an after-school garden & nature program for children in my local park As a single parent, I found it hard to get out of town, but wanted my kids to be aware of where food comes from I started with a Landscape Architecture diploma, a small gardening busines, and completed a Masters in Environmental Studies in 2014

Programs Kids Growing Urban Roots Youth Grownups Gardening Social Enterprise Children, school day, summer camp & March Break visits – over 6,000 participant opportunities in 2016 After-school program for 15-29s Takes place in gardens & greenhouses Volunteer & Member Support & Engagement Gardening on residential properties, youth & adults

What’s our approach? We serve a cluster of schools. Each gets ½ to one day of programming & additional maintenance per week through the growing season. Staffing: one full-time garden staff with part-time & seasonal help, placement students etc. Volunteers are critical to keeping a high ratio of adults to students. Summer is managed by hiring youth via the Canada Summer Jobs program Youth programs help maintain elementary gardens

Winchester School Community Garden This K-8 school is where Green Thumbs started our first school garden partnership in 2001. At 11,000 square feet, this is the largest elementary school food garden in the Toronto District School Board, and feeds 400 children garden-fresh produce. About 800 lbs. of food are produced per year.

Rose Ave. School Community Garden This is the second school partnership for GTGK, begun in 2005. It is a K-6 school with over 700 students in St. James Town, a high-rise community that is one of most densely populated neighbourhoods in North America. The garden was started in a shady corner.

Sprucecourt PS School Garden This is the third school partnership for GTGK, begun in 2008. It is a K-8 school with over 400 students in Regent Park, a social housing community under redevelopment. The garden was started by Lead2Peace, a youth group organizing against gun violence.

What are the main objectives? Better nutrition and food literacy for K-8 students A connection to the origin of food, for students and families – and a chance to grow cultural favourites Skills building for youth and options for income Local food production and composting for soil health & to reduce GHGe Exposure to the natural world and green space with varying trophic levels

Research Most school garden research comes from the US, and was considered lacking in rigour until fairly recently. Many studies were not formal enough. Recent work has synthesized the body of research in meta-analysis, confirming many of the results of smaller studies. Key research is contained in my paper, Kids Growing: Implementing School-Community Gardens in Ontario (Harrison-Vickars, 2014)

Evidence base for school gardens Research is most compelling on 3 facets: Increased consumption of fruits and vegetables (8+ studies) Academic achievement, particularly science but also math, language, arts & social studies (15 studies) Enhanced and enriched environmental education (15 studies)

Evidence base for school gardens Science achievement, and other academic subjects Williams and Dixon (2013) synthesized research conducted between 1990 and 2010 on the impact of garden-based learning on academic outcomes, and found improved science outcomes in 14/15 studies. (93%), with math scores improving in 80% and language in 72%. A meta-analysis of research into science achievement through school gardening showed increased test scores in 9 of 12 reported studies that measured them. (Blair 2009)

How do teachers use gardens? Research (Graham et al., 2004) shows the following breakdown:

How do teachers use gardens? A much larger study (Graham & Zidenberg-Cherr, 2005) found:

All the other stuff was gravy. Take-away? Teachers in my study identified Student Engagement as the primary benefit. Not food, not environmental learning…. Engagement. All the other stuff was gravy.

What are the barriers? Studies are mixed, but generally (in order): Lack of time Lack of curriculum Summer gap Lack of garden knowledge Lack of administrative/policy support Teaching outdoors presents challenges Gardens are often installed because of health and nutrition concerns, but not used by health educators

How do community partners help? My research (Harrison-Vickars, 2014) included a case study comparing school gardens with and without community partners My research also found that schools with a dedicated garden co-ordinator have longer-lived garden programs Higher-income schools have longer-lived garden programs In a jurisdiction (Washington, DC) with robust, policy-supported school gardens, there are 17 groups like ours partnering with one school board

How do community partners help? RATIO: Teachers in my study (n=11) identified the ratio of adults to children when teaching in the garden as important (82%) SUMMER maintenance was identified as a barrier by 100% of teachers in schools without a partner, and 18% in school with partner) PRACTICAL support and garden knowledge were identified as important by 45%

Conclusion School gardens including annual food crops are more work, but have more potential across the curriculum School food gardens need dedicated staff and volunteers, and should be well connected to community for summertime Implementing school gardens universally is difficult because of the differences between schools; economic, cultural & physical. Nonetheless, the benefits of successful school gardens are huge, especially for inner-city kids

Questions? Sunday Harrison, Executive Director Green Thumbs Growing Kids www.greenthumbsto.org