Cultivating Curriculum: How Investing in School Grounds, the Streetscape and Vacant Land as Urban Ecosystems can Address Food Security, the Community and Institutions of Public Education
Abstract
The 2014 Agricultural Act (Economic Research Division) (aka: The Farm Bill) was an important limelight shone on the issue of access to healthy foods, food education and the correlation between an increasingly unhealthy population and proximity to fresh, healthy food. Further legislation such as the Urban Agricultural Production Act of 2017 has been introduced to leverage the Farm Bills financial incentives to promote urban agricultural programs and transform vacant land into agricultural use. Specifically, this has become increasingly common in many lower income and disadvantaged communities affected by a lack of access to fresh food stores. Additionally, in response many public schools have pro-actively sought funds to transform their schoolyards into gardens and teaching classrooms (Gamson) in order to provide food literacy and education however, this practice remains the exception. Many children still face a lack of healthy food options or the availability of any fresh food outside of their school environment. What if the standard education facility could be used as a tool to confront not only the architecture of the learning space, but a school-as-ecosystem, representing a neighborhood catalyst to teach through action addressing comprehensive global issues brought on by food desert environments and a childs perspective about their own health? This thesis explores the possibility of casting the urban ecological net wide- envisioning a timescale for transforming public spaces and school grounds using green infrastructure practices, biological remediation, planning for changes in transportation technology and the expectations of a public education and childs perception about their environment.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 31, 2019
- Accession Number
- AD1114797
Entities
People
- Karen E. Mcallister
Organizations
- Virginia Tech