Country garden, city garden: elementary school gardens in rural, urban and northern Manitoba

Abstract

School gardening is not a new phenomenon, but its recent resurgence has placed it at the intersection of current social issues such as children’s health, interactions with nature, and the local foods movement: all within the context of climate change. School gardening with young children is significant since Wells & Lekies (2006) suggest that interactions with nature must occur before the age of eleven for pro-environmental attitudes to be formed in adulthood; furthermore, interactions with “wild nature” produce environmental behaviours in adulthood. With “wild nature” closer in rural and northern areas, this study seeks to ascertain if urban, rural or northern locations of the school garden have any impact on garden use, supports, and structure and whether it is used to teach about environmental citizenship. Though common attributes existed between all regions, results suggest that only the northern region showed regional commonalities. These shared attributes were in the areas of vandalism, adaptations for gardening, community and food security.