| Considerable informal evidence supports the efficacy of educational gardens as teaching tools. There is, however, little academic research to substantiate these claims. This research project aimed to determine the effect of an educational garden on the general knowledge and attitudes of students toward the environment. This study assessed the Edible Schoolyard garden project at Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkeley, California using parts of the Children's Environmental Response Inventory (CERI) and additional survey questions constructed by the author. This test was administered to both an experimental and a control group. Demographic information about students including gender, ethnicity, previous gardening experience, and previous plant knowledge was also collected and analyzed. Results unexpectedly show that the control group scored significantly higher than the experimental group on the attitudinal scale. A trend indicates that the program may have had a positive effect on the environmental knowledge of students, particularly African Americans. |
