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Nourishing Learning Environments: School Food Gardens and Sustainable Food Systems

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Nourishing Communities

Abstract

School Food Gardens are experiencing resurgence across North America and Europe. Through a review of the literature, we outline various iterations of school garden movements and present some of their philosophical and theoretical underpinnings. There have been inter-related and overlapping motivations for the establishment of these gardens over the past 120 years. With an understanding of these motivations, we conducted Canada-wide interviews with 18 school garden leaders. Analysis and synthesis of the results confirm that these school gardens use food as a connecting theme to provide community building and engagement, social development, curriculum and learning opportunities, a sense of place and connection to the environment, increased food literacy and health, and an effective link to local food and sustainable agriculture.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada

    Elizabeth Nowatschin & Erin Nelson

  2. School of Environmental Design & Rural Development‚ Landscape Architecture Rm 105, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, N1G 2W1, Canada

    Karen Landman

Authors
  1. Elizabeth Nowatschin
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  2. Karen Landman
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  3. Erin Nelson
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Correspondence to Karen Landman .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Irena Knezevic

  2. Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

    Alison Blay-Palmer

  3. Department of Health Sciences, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada

    Charles Z. Levkoe

  4. Just Food, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Phil Mount

  5. International Development Studies, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada

    Erin Nelson

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Nowatschin, E., Landman, K., Nelson, E. (2017). Nourishing Learning Environments: School Food Gardens and Sustainable Food Systems. In: Knezevic, I., Blay-Palmer, A., Levkoe, C., Mount, P., Nelson, E. (eds) Nourishing Communities. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57000-6_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57000-6_6

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-56999-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-57000-6

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