The effect of school gardens on self-esteem, interpersonal relationships, attitude toward school, and environmental attitude in populations of children.

摘要

The main goal of this study was to initiate and integrate Project GREEN, an environmental education school garden program, into the curriculum of several schools in Kansas and Texas and subsequently assess its effects on specific affective responses of students involved. Eight schools, approximately 550 students, participated in the study. Project GREEN was designed to provide second through eighth grade teachers with math and science-oriented garden activities that could be infused into classroom lessons and would serve to reinforce curriculum in these disciplines with hands-on activities. The objectives included evaluating whether the students in Project GREEN were benefiting in the areas of self-esteem, interpersonal relationships, attitude toward school and environmental attitudes as a result of participation.;Pre-tests were administered to students prior to the garden program and post-tests were administered after completion. The questionnaire included a psychological inventory, an environmental attitude survey and a biographical information section. Comparisons were made between the experimental and a control group of children obtained from the norming data of the psychological inventory. Comparisons were also made between the pre- and post-tests of the experimental group.;The gardening program had a statistically significant negative effect on adolescents' attitude toward school. This could have been due to the timing of the post-test instrument at the end of the school year, or other factors such as that some students involved were concerned with "getting dirty" at school.;In demographic comparisons, those schools that allocated more individual garden space to students had children with more positive attitudes toward school. After the gardening program, females had more positive attitudes toward school than males; and adolescents had more positive interpersonal relationships than children. No differences were found in comparisons of ethnicity, place of residence and previous gardening experience.;In environmental attitude comparisons, demographic results showed that there were differences between gender and ethnicity with females and Caucasian students having the most positive environmental attitudes of all groups. No significant differences were found between schools, age groups, place of residence and previous gardening experience.