Public school gardens and sustainable health result from UH teamwork

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Contact:
Josh Bostic, (808) 956-0457
Research Technician, Geology and Geophysics
Marcie Grabowski, (808) 956-3151
Outreach Coordinator, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology
Posted: Jun 1, 2015

Transferring vegetables from the self-watering planters to the garden. Credit: STEM Pre-Academy.
Transferring vegetables from the self-watering planters to the garden. Credit: STEM Pre-Academy.
The team in front of Jarrett Middle School's garden. Credit: STEM Pre-Academy.
The team in front of Jarrett Middle School's garden. Credit: STEM Pre-Academy.

The Jahren Lab at UH Mānoa has partnered with the STEM Pre-Academy, a program in the UH Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation, to foster inspiration in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) in public middle schools. Through teacher-driven collaboration, the team developed and implemented a research- and technology-based curriculum.

Combining the Jahren Lab’s primary research focuses of environmental science and nutrition, the UH team developed a three-part outreach program for middle school students – from discovering the nutritional and environmental importance of locally sourced fruits and vegetables; to designing their own self-watering planters and transplanting their vegetables and herbs in the school garden; and finally, using their harvest to construct a healthy meal with a local chef. 

 “With food transportation and processing accounting for 30 percent of energy use within the U.S. food system, the adoption of diets based on locally sourced, unprocessed whole foods has the potential to significantly improve the health of our environment and our citizens,” said A. Hope Jahren, a Professor at the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), who leads the Jahren Lab.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Hawaiian Islands, where a majority of supermarket food is produced thousands of miles away, resulting in substantial fossil fuel emissions and higher costs for fresh fruits and vegetables.

“We wanted to concurrently address both public and environmental health in educational programs by demonstrating how such diets not only improve our well-being, but the economic and environmental health of our local communities as well,” said Josh Bostic, a research technician in the Jahren Lab and driving force behind this collaborative project.

Bostic and Lori Hashimoto, STEM Pre-Academy program manager and lead engineer, decided that to affect healthy lifestyle changes there’s no better place to start than in schools, where children are still forming the opinions and habits that will follow them for the rest of their lives.

“Being able to expand the educational value of the school-based garden with nutritional expertise brings greater value to students both on and off the school campus,” said Hashimoto.

The resulting pilot project, completed at Jarrett Middle School, was a great success. 

“My students gained useful life long knowledge from this pilot project.  They really enjoyed the hands on activities like making the self-watering plant containers.  But their favorite activity was placing their plants in their garden to see it grow,” said Sue Erickson, a P.E./Health Teacher at Jarrett Middle School.

Erickson will continue the school garden project and plans to incorporate similar learning activities in Physical Education classes next year.

Further, the Jahren Lab and the STEM Pre-Academy also intend to extend their collaboration to establish similar programs in schools across the state. This summer, the team plans to design a multi-media based project guide which will include an interactive video series on healthy eating in Hawai‘i, an engineering design lesson on constructing self-watering planters, and helpful advice on establishing and maintaining school-based gardens for growing fruits and vegetables.

“We are grateful for the opportunity to work alongside STEM Pre-Academy and Jarrett Middle School to spread our love of plants and nutrition to classrooms across the state,” said Bostic.

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Complete photo caption (bottom photo, from left):
STEM Pre-Academy Program Manager and Lead Engineer Lori Hashimoto, Jahren Lab Research Technician Josh Bostic, Jarrett Middle School Health Teacher Sue Erickson and STEM Pre-Academy Technical Engineer Edwin Colon in front of the Jarrett Middle Outreach Garden. Credit: STEM Pre-Academy.

For more information, visit: http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/