Garden Mosaics project coordinator Rebekah Doyle teaches area science teachers
about
the benefits of community gardens so they can help educate their students
in the fall.
UTSA partners on $1.4 million grant to teach youth about the benefits of gardens
(July 15, 2002)--University of Texas at San Antonio Assistant Professor Stephen
Brown and researchers from Cornell University and Penn State University
were recently awarded a $1.4 million Garden Mosaics grant from the National
Science Foundation to help inner-city youth conduct research in and about
gardens. Researchers hope the study will help students learn gardening techniques
from their elders and use that knowledge to create their own community gardens
or teach others how to be successful gardeners.
The youth will investigate the gardening practices of adults from a diversity
of immigrant, minority and rural cultures, and discover science concepts and
principles related to their garden investigations. Some of the methods involved
include constructing maps with gardeners showing plants and planting methods,
drawing diagrams of gardening boundaries and collecting soil measurements.
"UTSA was asked to assist due to our expertise and resources in Global
Information System (GIS) education and our very large Hispanic population,
which may be incorporating new and undiscovered agricultural practices into
their gardening techniques," said Brown.
According to Rebekah Doyle, project coordinator, community gardens
have proven successful in larger cities such as New York City, Philadelphia
and Baltimore, where various cultures have found themselves working with their
city leaders to help maintain the beauty of the community gardens in their
neighborhoods.
Doyle hopes to implement the program in other parts of Texas including Austin
and Houston. She recently made a presentation on the Garden Mosaics program
to area science teachers in San Antonio participating in the 10-day Teaching
Environmental Science (TES) workshop hosted by UTSA.
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UTSA partners on $1.4 million grant to teach youth about gardens
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© The University of Texas at San Antonio, 2002