Garden-Based Learning
Garden-Based Learning at Morningside Elementary
From 2019 to 2023, undergraduate Texas Christian University public health nursing (PHN) student teams completed service-learning projects under faculty supervision with Morningside Elementary School, a pre-K to 5 public school in the Fort Worth Independent School District (FWISD), located in southeast Fort Worth. These projects are featured in seven poster presentations focused on food literacy and garden-based learning in children from pre-Kinder to fifth grade. Collaborators include Texas AgriLife Extension, Tarrant County Master Gardeners, and Blue Zones of Fort Worth. In the fall of 2019, the garden had lost its champions, and the new principal requested support from TCU Nursing. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the garden committee adapted the evidence-based Learn Grow Eat Go! curriculum from the Junior Master Gardeners for use in specific classrooms across the school. TCU Nursing introduced the Blue Zones of Fort Worth gardening team to Morningside, and a sustainable model for garden-based learning is now in place through that partnership. TCU Nursing built capacity for gardening and was able to leave the Morningside Elementary Garden in good hands with Blue Zones and Made Greene leadership in the spring of 2023.
Garden-Based Learning at HOPE Farm
In the spring of 2022, Morningside students introduced us to HOPE Farm because of their attendance at this after-school program located less than one mile from their school. TCU PHN students were able to develop a maintenance plan for the vegetable garden, in collaboration with HOPE Farm leadership, and featured their work in two poster presentations focused on food literacy and environmental health literacy as central concepts of creation care. The students wrote a Tarrant Regional Water District Conservation Treasures grant to secure funding to renovate the HOPE Farm monarch waystation at HOPE Farm, which is now a project site of the Cross Timbers Chapter of the Texas Master Naturalists.
Future gardening partners
Cook Children’s Life After Cancer program is another emerging partner for garden-based learning to promote health and wellness, based on findings from a recent assessment that young adult cancer survivors are interested in improving their nutrition and food literacy.