Growing Sustainable Connections: the UA, Community Food Bank, and Tucson Schools

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1 Growing Sustainable Connections: the UA, Community Food Bank, and Tucson Schools Project Description An urban community garden is a practical food source, an innovative and powerful educational tool and a way to decrease a city s ecological footprint. As urban governments and their constituencies across the country address issues of food security and sustainability, as well as challenges in K 12 education, school and other urban community gardens have emerged as a way to supplement student and community diets while teaching those involved about the dynamics of local ecologies, nutrition, the culture and politics of food, and practical life skills not limited to horticulture. The UA Community Garden Internship Program, co managed by Sallie Marston and Sarah Moore, connects University of Arizona students and faculty from three colleges with Tucson educators and the Tucson Community Food Bank (TCFB) to build, grow, maintain and learn from school and other urban community gardens. We seek funding for a graduate student coordinator who will participate, not only in managing UA student interns in the field, but also in establishing a long term institutionalized program. In the spring of 2010, we piloted this project through a three unit internship based course with six students in two schools (Borton Primary Magnet School and Ochoa Elementary School). In the fall of 2010, we continued the internship program with 10 students working in 3 schools (Borton, Ochoa, and Davis Bilingual Magnet School). This spring we have increased student enrollment to 14 and added three more schools (Manzo Elementary School, Wakefield Middle School, and Tucson High Magnet School) We have divided the interns both graduate and undergraduate students into teams of 2 or 3 who work with students in each school. These teams work closely with one primary contact (a classroom teacher), the principal and teacher assistants at each school. We work in partnership with the Tucson Community Food Bank (TCFB), who trains interns to design and construct sustainable gardens, suitable for Tucson s environmental conditions, and provides the participating schools with gardening resources. Our interns assist teachers and their students with planting, maintaining, and harvesting the gardens, as well as preparing foods and making surplus food from the gardens available for sale in the weekly TCFB s farmers market. We are also continuing to develop curricular materials on nutrition, the ecological context of food production, and food histories, geographies, and politics available to Tucson schools and the community via a UA website ( Ultimately, we aim to establish an institutionalized outreach program that involves a partnership within the University as well as with the community. Our primary partners in supplying student interns and faculty include the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) for expertise in the science of food production, the College of Education (COE) for expertise in teacher education, and the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBS) for expertise in the social science of food issues. We are also working with the Institute of the Environment to promote the program to students and possible funders. Finally, we are seeking, but have not yet secured, the participation of the Eller College of Management (ECM) for expertise in management and marketing, and the School of Public Health (SPH) for expertise in health and

2 nutrition. Our community partners are the TCFB and the Tucson Schools. The former provide garden development and maintenance workshops and extensive connections with Tucson K 12 schools. Tucson K 12 educators provide an exciting and productive opportunity for UA students to become actively engaged in their local community. In addition to an established internship program that accommodates interested and enthusiastic students, we are initiating discussions with our UA partners about the opportunity to develop a suite of courses related to teacher education around the multiple knowledge fields that contribute to school gardens through an online, certified, continuing education program available to teachers throughout Arizona. Discussions with Ron Marx and faculty member Alberto Arenas, a sustainability and education specialist, about this teacher directed aspect of the project are ongoing. If successful, we would use the requested funds to build a firm foundation for the program by demonstrating its viability to our various university partners. We will continue working with them during the project s trial period so that UA Green Fund monies would be replaced by the various colleges full financial investment in the project at the termination of Green Fund support. There are four goals for this project: 1. Test the viability of a University centered internship program that fully supports urban community and school gardens. 2. Teach undergraduates the importance of and how to achieve sustainability in urban food systems as well as citizenship obligations to community/social development. 3. Develop foundational curricula that can be shared across schools in Tucson and Arizona more broadly through our UA website. 4. Sustain the UA School Garden Internship Program by a) pursuing outside funding sources that will enable the program to persist beyond the project s trial period and b) developing a continuing education program for K 12 teachers. Involvement of and Potential Impacts on UA students and the Tucson Community The beneficiaries of the project include undergraduate students and graduate students at UA, local K 12 students and teachers, the TCFB, and university faculty. University students will develop a sense of civic responsibility to Tucson, new sustainable urban gardening skills, and the ability to work with local teachers and students. Local K 12 students will develop gardening skills, knowledge of the social and ecological aspects of gardening and urban food systems, and a sense of community and responsibility. K 12 teachers will be assisted by university faculty and the graduate student coordinator directly and by the web curriculum that is continually being developed. The TCFB will be aided in the short term by the labor of UA and K 12 students in its sustainable gardening and food security projects, and in the long term by the creation of institutional ties that will support school and community gardening well into the future. University faculty will benefit by being able to contribute knowledge and time to a critical local issue and by learning new skills from the TCFB. By working together to create gardens, the

3 participants will also be helping to address the important issue of food security and sustainability in the broader Tucson community. Ultimately the project s model can be extended to connect K 12 teachers, university faculty and students, and community groups in the development of school and other urban community gardens across Arizona. In this way, the potential impacts of the project are quite broad. Evaluation of Project The project s success will be defined by 1) expansion into more local schools, 2) increased and sustained enrollment in the internship program on the part of UA students, 3) continued contributions of personnel and food from the internship to the TCFB, 4) the continued development of a project website that all Tucson teachers can use so that the gardens themselves become teaching tools for understanding sustainable local ecologies, nutrition, local food politics and the social dynamics of community participation, and 5) development of a continuing education program for local teachers. In this way, the project will promote connections between diverse and widespread groups, both on the UA campus and off, concerned about issues of food production and food security. We seek to sustain success beyond the grant by building an institutional structure that supports community and school gardening over the long term and by stimulating new synergies between the university and the community that have the potential to generate further cooperative ventures in local food issues. Impacts on Environmental Sustainability at UA In addition to the above, this project will positively impact sustainability at UA by developing an exemplary and innovative model for connecting University faculty and students with the TCFB and Tucson schools to address issues of sustainable food production and local food security. University students and faculty involved in the project are learning to apply the theories and concepts they study in the classroom from crop production, to the culture of food to water conservation to real world applications. Indeed, several of the students involved in the school and community garden program have gone on to develop an exciting plan for a UA university and community garden or have established student gardening clubs. By developing partnerships with the Tucson community and its schools, our program enhances the university s profile as a leader in sustainability across the metropolitan area and the state. Project personnel and involved units Primary Investigators Sallie A. Marston, Professor / marston@ .arizona.edu Role: project management, procurement of cooperation and funds from UA colleges, departments and schools and outside funding sources, course instruction, development of online materials

4 Experience: Research in urban growth and development and Tucson s neighborhood associations Sarah A. Moore, Assistant Professor / samoore@ .arizona.edu Role: project management, procurement of cooperation and funds from UA departments and schools and outside funding sources, course instruction, development of online materials Experience: Research in history of urban gardening and urban geography Current Graduate Student Coordinator David Tecklin Graduate Assistant Role: Coordination of interns with TCFB and K 12 schools, development of online materials Experience: Coordination of environmental and social justice non profit organizations in Latin America and the U.S., Community Supported Agriculture volunteer dtecklin@ .arizona.edu Tucson Community Food Bank Contact Zotero Citlacoatl School & Community Garden Coordinator Community Food Resource Center 3003 S. Country Club Road Tucson, AZ / ZCitlalcoatl@communityfoodbank.org Affiliated University of Arizona Unit Contacts John Paul Jones, III Social and Behavioral Sciences / jpjones@ .arizona.edu Ron Marx College of Education / ronmarx@ .arizona.edu Eugene Sander College of Agriculture & Life Sciences / egsander@ag.arizona.edu

5 Diana Liverman Co Director Institute of the Environment / liverman@ .arizona.edu Tucson K 12 Participating Schools Wakefield Middle School Tucson High Magnet School Borton Primary Magnet School Ochoa Elementary School Davis Bilingual Magnet School Manzo Elementary School Project timeline Semester Activities/Tasks Outcomes/Milestones Fall 2011 Continued Coordination of Gardens with K 12 teachers and interns* Website Development Recruitment of additional schools, interns and units* Built and maintained gardens* Surplus food* Interns trained in sustainable gardening techniques* Spring 2012 Website Development Gardening Website finalized Fall 2012 Website Maintenance Course cross listing and teaching approved by all participating colleges and departments Spring 2013 Website Maintenance Teacher Training Courses *ongoing tasks and outcomes for each semester Establishment of Graduate Assistant position through CALS, Education and SBS