Effects of a School-Based Garden Program on Academic Performance: A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract

Background: School gardening programs have consistently been found to improve dietary behaviors in children. Although several quasi-experimental studies have also reported that school gardens can enhance academic performance, to date, no randomized controlled trial has been conducted to substantiate this.

Objective: The objective of the study was to examine the effects of Texas Sprouts (TX Sprouts), a gardening, nutrition, and cooking program vs control on academic performance in primarily low-income, Hispanic children.

Design: This is a secondary analysis of the grade-level academic scores from schools that participated in the TX Sprouts program, a school-based cluster randomized controlled trial, consisting of 16 elementary schools that were randomly assigned to either the TX Sprouts intervention (n = 8 schools) or control (delayed intervention; n = 8 schools).

Participants/setting: Analysis included 16 schools with students in fourth and fifth grade in Austin, TX from 2016 to 2019 that had a majority Hispanic population and a majority of children participating in the free and reduced lunch program.

Intervention: The intervention consisted of 18 one-hour gardening, nutrition, and cooking lessons taught in an outdoor teaching garden by trained educators throughout the academic year.

Main outcome measures: Texas Education Agency grade-level data for the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness were obtained via the Texas Education Agency website for the corresponding year of the intervention or control condition.

Statistical analysis performed: Repeated measures general linear models with pre- and post-intervention State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness scores as the dependent variable were run, adjusting for the percent of free and reduced lunch and school district as covariates.

Results: Schools that received the TX Sprouts intervention had a 6.5-percentage-point increase in fourth-grade reading State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness scores compared with control schools (P = .047). There were no significant differences in reading scores for fifth grade students or math scores for either fourth- or fifth-grade students between groups.

Conclusions: Study findings provide evidence that school gardening programs may have some modest effects on academic achievement.

Keywords: Academic performance; Cooking intervention; Gardening; Hispanic; Low-income; Nutrition; School-based.