Middle school students will reap the benefits of garden study grant

— Stark Ligon helps teach students to garden an area of more than two acres between Gibbs Elementary and Dunbar Middle School near downtown Little Rock.

At the beginning of a class, he and fellow gardeners give the middle-schoolers a pop quiz: “We’ll initially ask them, ‘So, where does your food come from?’

“And they all go ‘McDonald’s’ or ‘the grocery store.’ ... I don’t think they make the connect that, hey, this stuff initially comes out of the ground somewhere and this is how you make it.”

This is one root of a few problems that a new $1.8million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will address.

In October, the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service awarded the grant to the Arkansas Children’s Hospital Research Institute to partner with local gardeners and teachers on small-scale gardening projects at seven Arkansas middle schools. Ligon is an executive of a nonprofit organization that will provide urban gardening expertise to the research scientists, he said.

The Delta Garden Study aims to encourage exercise and healthier eating habits among students in grades six through eight, while fulfillingscience, health and physicaleducation class requirements. The four-year study will include a full pilot study at a central Arkansas school in fall 2010, and the next year will add 12 more schools - six with gardens, and six control programs - across the Delta. All seven one-acre gardens, including the pilotstudy site, valued at $17,000, will have a full-time garden manager to supervise them, according to a news release from the institute. Scientists will track 200 students from each school.

Judy Weber, the study’s lead investigator, said one of the study’s chief goals is decreasing obesity among participating 11- to 14-year-olds with low-intensity exercise.

“The kids it will help the most are ones who are completely sedentary, or the ones who have no other school affiliation,” said Weber, anassociate professor of pediatrics in the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Medicine. Nationally, about 16 percent of youths ages 6-19 years are overweight or obese. In Arkansas, it’s 38 percent, Weber said during a project workshop on a recent weekday.

“We want to show these kids that they don’t need a special physical skill to plant a crop; they don’t needa particular talent to build a greenhouse,” Weber said. All seven of the schools’ gardens will include greenhouses.

The program centers on science, health and physical-education lessons teamtaught at least twice a week by teachers and garden managers, said Ligon, vice president of the board of directors of Arkansas Urban Garden Educational Resources, which oversees the Dunbar Garden at 1800 S. Chester St. Project criteria dictate that each school have four to seven teachers willing to participate and that students collectively commit at least 50 hours monthly to help the garden manager. Lesson examples shown on the study’sWeb site have students:

Showing how much time it takes students to burn off the calories in popular junk foods and snacks with garden exercise such as raking, hoeing and weeding.

Measuring the heat and humidity generated by composting piles.

Creating meal plans based on “garden foods” such as legumes, fruits, vegetables and eggs that correspond to the USDA’s dietary guidelines.

Scientists, educators and gardeners affiliated with the project are designing the lessons, which will incorporate 132 activities, to meet state educational standards, Ligon said. Some of those lessons are based on the 150 handson gardening and environmental-education classes taught at Dunbar Garden each year.

That 17-year-old garden, which includes worm boxes and chicken coops, will serve as a model for the fall 2010 pilot program at a school yet to chosen, Weber said. Project leaders hope to select a central Arkansas middleschool by late January. “The sooner we get the schools lined up, the better, so we can start working with them,” she said.

Those interested in more information may visit arteengarden.com.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 12/31/2009

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