Science in the Learning Gardens (henceforth, SciLG) program was designed to address two well-documented, interrelated educational problems: under-representation in science of students from racial and ethnic minority groups and from low-income groups, and inadequacies of curriculum and pedagogy to address students’ cultural and motivational needs. Through collaborative partnership between Portland Public Schools (PPS) and Portland State University (PSU), in Portland, Oregon, the SciLG curriculum for sixth through eighth grades was designed to align with Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and used school gardens as the milieu for science instruction. The program brought middle-school youth from two schools into gardens for 50-90 minutes block at a critical time in their development to broaden the factors that supported their interest and motivation in science learning. Student success and engagement in science were investigated using the motivational model of Self-Determination Theory (SDT).

According to the SDT motivational model, schools can either support or undermine children's fundamental psychological needs, which include the needs for: relatedness (to feel they are welcome and belong), competence (to feel they are efficacious), and autonomy (to feel self-determined in their learning). For SciLG, this model highlights factors that help students develop positive academic identity for science and to engage, persist, and succeed in science.

SciLG was designed and pilot-tested in grades 6, 7, and 8 at two PPS schools. PSU faculty and graduate students collaborated with participating PPS science teachers for NGSS-aligned science curriculum design and use of their schools' gardens for instruction. The research team studied how learning gardens served as an effective pedagogical strategy for NGSS-aligned science curriculum. Longitudinal data were collected following students from grade 6 to grade 8 over three years using measures related to science learning along with measures of motivational engagement using the SDT model. Data analysis on motivational engagement showed that while staying engaged with active and integrated science learning in school gardens, students’ sense of competence and autonomy tended to increase—these are ingredients essential for their journey between middle grades and science careers.

Intellectual Merit.

The SciLG project brought together science education experts, master teachers, leaders in diversity pedagogy and garden education, researchers in developmental psychology, and educational leaders to develop curriculum aligned with NGSS and instruction that is engaging, hands-on, experiential, and culturally responsive to encourage science learning among highly diverse and predominantly low-income middle school students. SciLG provides a tangible example of how to operationalize the practices, disciplinary core ideas, and crosscutting concepts of NGSS and use of pedagogical principles of garden-based learning to provide opportunities for diverse students to learn science in ways that are engaging. SciLG curriculum and instructional strategies contribute to the literature on integrated curriculum and instruction. The motivational engagement research with the instruments tuned for SciLG represent one of the few suites of quantitative indicators to map students’ engagement and sense of connectedness especially in middle schools. While anticipating further peer-reviewed publications, the curriculum, instruction, and research products developed for SciLG are available at http://learning-gardens.org/#science-in-the-learning-gardens.

Broader Impact.

This project has contributed to the growing body of literature on both science learning and garden-based learning, with particular focus on science engagement of middle school youth. As concern for social justice is increasing, and with the growing national and international school garden movement, SciLG provides an opportunity to tip the scales by engaging students in authentic, real-world learning of science and cultivating their interests. SciLG research outcomes highlight the role of students’ views of themselves as competent, related, and autonomous in the garden, as well as their engagement and re-engagement in the garden, as potential pathways by which gardening activities can shape science motivation, learning, and academic identity in science. As motivated adolescents participating in SciLG, it is possible for them to counter the trends of achievement gaps and underperformance, thus advancing equity in science specifically. With heightened global interest in climate change and health—especially obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and food insecurity—all of which disproportionately affect low-income and racial and ethnic minority populations, SciLG offers practical life-skills for adolescents to learn science as they connect with earth, soil, food, and a web of relationships informed by NGSS and garden-based learning.

Dissemination efforts have focused on sharing the NGSS-aligned curriculum, pedagogical principles for garden-based learning, motivational research measures and tools, along with study findings. These dissemination efforts have included publication in an international journal of STEM education, several peer-reviewed presentations, regional and national workshops and trainings, videos, and development of a web portal hosted by PSU (http://learning-gardens.org/#science-in-the-learning-gardens) for access to SciLG project-related materials available freely to researchers, practitioners and policy-makers. On-going data analysis, peer-reviewed papers, and revised updated curriculum based on classroom trials, will continue to be posted on this web portal.

Last Modified: 09/01/2018
Modified by: Dilafruz R Williams