Key Program Outcomes for K-12 School Gardens Identified Through Expert Consensus

Abstract

National trends indicate that school gardens are positioned to become fixtures in primary and secondary education. Garden-based learning and curricula are aligned with school standards and reinforce educational activities in diverse subjects, including science, language arts, math, and social studies. Extension faculty and staff are often called upon by clientele to provide technical expertise on these efforts within schools. An estimated 1 in 5 extension agents are involved in school gardens (Benson, 2014). However, there is a clear lack of an outcome-driven framework for support organizations, including Extension, to use to determine and evaluate the short, medium, and long-term outcomes for program activities. The results from the Delphi study presented in this article represent the first step in developing a comprehensive set of indicators that can be used to create measurable objectives and evaluation tools.

Keywords

• School Gardens