Engaging families in growing their own food through home-based STEM learning experiences

Abstract

The COVID-19 crisis has perpetuated and accentuated two equity issues: the first is the disparity in access to learning opportunities, particularly in STEM and computational science (STEM+C), that youth from low-income households have compared to their more affluent peers. The second is a family’s ability to easily access healthy and nutritious food. Our work directly addresses both these critical needs in our partner communities by engaging low-income youth along with their families in hydroponics, engineering design, and physical computing by building mini Do-It-Yourself (DIY) greenhouses to grow healthy produce. Most urban youth have little knowledge of where their food comes from and have few opportunities to learn how to grow healthy produce themselves, impeding their access to produce and thus healthy eating. This underexposure to the potentials of urban farming means that urban youth also have few opportunities to recognize that in learning to grow food they are also learning many skills that can lead to a career in a STEM field (Aschbacher & Roth, 2010). Further, this also impacts eating habits of youth in that researchers have found that youth who are engaged in growing their own food improve not just their own nutritional habits, but also their entire family’s. With this year-long project we aim to develop capacity and knowledge amongst families to grow and access healthy food, which is of critical concern for the society in the area of public health, and in line with the mission of the SIGECS program.

Presentations

• Evolution and Implementation of a Smart Greenhouse Project for Teachers, Schools and Families, Canadian Science Teachers Association Conference, July 2022
• Engaging families in growing their own food  through home-based STEM learning experiences, Science Educators for Equity, Diversity, and Social Justice, July 2022
• Public event: Waltham River Fest
• Public event: Steampunk Festival 
• Public event: Waltham Day (Sept 2024)
  

Publications 

• Zhang, H., Hira, A., Phatak, J., Barnett, G. M., & Shah, S. A. (2024). Growing STEM Leaders: High School Youth as Teachers and Mentors through Teaching Physical Computing. In Ş. Orakcı (Ed.), Redesigning the Future of Education in the Light of New Theories, Teaching Methods, Learning, and Researches. Information Age Publishing.
  

Additional Grants

•  “Empowering Youth in STEM and Technological Careers through AI-enhanced Sustainable and Community-focused Urban Gardening,” PI: Dr. Michael Barnett, CO-Pis: Dr. Avneet Hira, Dr. Helen  Zhang, Dr. Lacee Satcher, Dr. Maureen Kenney, $1,300,000, National Science Foundation. (BC News article) 
• $200,000 from an anonymous foundation
• Constellation’s E2 Energy to Educate grant program. Project – Engaging Youth and their Families in Learning About Alternative Energies through Food Justice – was awarded a grant of $25,000
• $25,000 over two years for FY24-25 SI-RITEA grant
• A scale up of our smart greenhouse project that we tested and implemented with the youth.  The schiller grant helped us to revise, test, and iterate the work to apply for a new NSF grant to enhance our teacher training. The grant is currently recommended for funding with an estimated start date of Fall 2024 from the National Science Foundation.  A total BC award amount of $1,589,209 over the next three years.
  

Students Trained 

• 2 Students

Additional Accomplishments 

• 3 youth programs run, which involved 117 middle school and high school youth
• Built a new partnership with the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation that is leading to new NSF and foundation grant submissions
• Hosted events at the Waltham River Festival, and at the Steampunk festival (in total these two events had 30,000 attendees)