By: Andrew Smith, M.S. Agriculture, Education & Communication
Why Start with School Gardens?
School gardens aren’t just for growing plants – they also grow healthier diets, habits and sustainable mindsets. A student is much more likely to try a fruit or vegetable (and hopefully love it!) if they grew it themselves in a school garden versus a pre-packaged, processed fruit or vegetable served to them in the cafeteria (Davis et al, 2021). This can lead to healthier dietary behaviors and encourage continued preference towards nutritious options Healthier habits aren’t the only thing that can be learned – a school garden can provide opportunities to integrate food and nutrition education into the core disciplines and even motivate students to find smarter solutions to reduce food waste in school, at home and throughout their community.
Here’s just a few of the great benefits a school garden can provide:
Thinking About Food Waste
School gardens create a meaningful connection between the food being grown and what’s served on a plate at mealtime. Students that contribute to the garden through hands-on experiences, whether it’s a classroom lesson taught in the garden, planting, watering, or weeding – have a stronger relationship to the food being grown. As a product of their own hard work, students begin to think about and understand the amount of labor that goes into growing a crop, harvesting, transporting, and preparing it for a meal –. Not only does this build respect towards food and those that grow it, like a local farmer, but also gets students (and adults!) thinking about the amount of food they waste each meal., This encourages them to do their to reduce food waste or provide surplus food for those who need it, contributing to food security within the community (NEEF, 2024).
And once we’re thinking about something, we can start to ask ourselves questions.
Should I take this food if I’ll only have one bite and throw it away? (No!)
Is this food less edible because it looks ugly? (No!)
Could someone else have this if I don’t want it? (YES!)
Maybe the next time baby carrots almost end up in the trash, a student will recognize the time and labor that went into growing that carrot and serving it – resulting in a clean plate or a choice to not take the food in the first place, adding a sense of personal responsibility within our food system. Getting students to think about their waste is one thing, but the next step is building a sustainable mindset to reduce it.
Learning Beyond the Classroom
School gardens can integrate science, math, reading and social studies into lessons about nutrition and food waste. Hands-on experiences within a school garden bring greater engagement and retention of information, leading to higher test scores, less classroom behavior management and stronger cognitive and social skills, like teambuilding and problem solving (Leiberman, Gerald & Hoody, 1998).
For younger students, the core disciplines can be adapted to focus on interacting with the garden and food-based topics. For instance, a science lesson can focus on the biology of a crop being grown or the pH values of soil, while a social studies lesson can focus on the history of a crop and the culture of those who cultivated it. For older students, more comprehensive topics dealing with contemporary issues around food waste, equity, and sustainability can be introduced to reinforce attitudes that promote a sustainable mindset (WWF, 2019) and motivate students to search for creative solutions to reduce waste at school, at home and within their community.
By providing a multi-disciplinary education based on food and contemporary issues related to food production and consequences of food waste, future generations are more equipped to think with concepts like waste reduction, food recovery and sustainability.
Reducing Waste
School gardens can continue to grow outside of the plot and create bigger initiatives to reduce waste and recover more food. Composting programs, share tables, food pantries, and even garden tastings can serve as an excellent motivation for waste reduction and over school sustainability.
Often, initiatives within schools to reduce waste begin with a Food Waste Audit to identify where and why the most waste is generated, and to better focus efforts around long-term solutions and operational adjustments. It should come as no surprise that the most waste in schools happens in the cafeteria – apart from operational challenges, menu and mealtime limitations (Ramsey, 2024). Food waste audits can provide opportunities for collaborative action between students and staff. The USDA, EPA and University of Arkansas provide an effective Guide to Conducting Student Food Waste Audits (2025) in schools, and how to utilize a data driven approach in the search for creative and sustainable changes.
Incorporating food from a garden in school meals or tastings can be an effective way to add variety and nutrition to a limited menu, reduce operational burdens and purchasing costs for school food systems while encouraging additional considerations to reduce food waste, such as “Offer vs. Serve” programs that allow students greater flexibility in what they choose to take for their plate, leading to less food being thrown away.
Produce harvested from a school garden further bolsters initiatives like share tables and food pantries, strategies that are proven to reduce waste and expand food access. When students are empowered to choose what they eat, uneaten items are more likely to be shared rather than thrown away—ending up on a share table or in a pantry where students can take food home to their families or be donated to local food pantries. Fresh fruits and vegetables added to the selection can help close nutrition gaps, introduce families to foods they may not otherwise be able to afford or access, and foster a stronger sense of community—with the school garden serving as a central, unifying source of fresh food.
But what is there to do with food we don’t finish, or the parts we can’t eat, like a banana peel or an orange rind? Compost it!
Composting is the natural process of decomposing organic materials like food scraps and yard waste into a nutrient rich soil amendment. A healthy compost requires the right mixture of “greens” (grass clippings, plant prunings and food scraps – 25%) and “browns” (leaves, sticks, paper and cardboard – 75%), consistent temperature, level of moisture, and someone to turn the mixture occasionally until it is ready to be added to the soil. The result, however, is a soil additive that can make any harvest more nutritious and bountiful.
Cafeteria composting initiatives are a great way for students and staff to collaborate in developing an efficient system to put waste to work. Labeled garbage bins that help sort food waste between what can, and can’t be composted reduce the burden of sorting food scraps, and assignments of which class is managing the compost help to bolster the shared sense of responsibility students will have in creating their garden, reducing food waste, and growing a stronger community by closing the cycle, from the seed back to the soil.
And Florida schools have on-site gardens, composting, share tables and partnerships with organizations like us to donate their surplus. Check out this amazing video showcasing one of our partners, Orange County Public Schools (OCPS). At Sand Lake Elementary, students participate in composting, a school garden and share tables to reduce waste. Since the publishing of this video, OCPS has donated 370,000 pounds of food since the start of our relationship in 2021.
Want to Start a School Garden?
Whether the goal is to fight food waste, integrate a school garden into class lesson plans or start a school garden itself, there are plenty of resources to help:
- Florida Agriculture in the Classroom
- Farm to School Florida
- USDA School Gardens
- Harvest of the Month
- WWF Food Waste in Schools
- USDA Compost
School gardens are just one tool in the fight against food waste. By using a school garden as a tool to grow a culture of environmental stewardship and sustainability, we can improve health and spark curiosity, reduce food waste, and build stronger communities through delicious harvests, season after season.
Sources:
EPA, 2017
Davis et al. 2021
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12966-021-01087-x
NEEF, 2024
Lieberman, Gerald A., and Linda L. Hoody. Closing the Achievement Gap: Using the Environment as an Integrating Context for Learning. San Diego, Calif.: State Education and Environment Roundtable, 1998. – https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED428943
WWF, 2019
Ramsey, 2024
Article by Andrew Smith, M.S. Agriculture, Education & Communication