Why Build School Gardens?

September 1, 2025

Richard Louv published his book, Last Child in the Woods, in 2005. Since then, more and more public schools have realized the importance of providing children with interactive spaces to engage with nature. There are over 3000 school gardens in America today. School gardens provide several benefits: support for children's mental and physical health and improved academic performance.

Schools that have incorporated more community gardens into their campuses have popped up across the country, including in Flagstaff, Denver, Seattle, Oakland, Little Rock, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Chicago, and right here in Texas in Austin and Houston, and many schools in the DFW area. Richard Louv describes Nature Deficit Disorder, a phrase he coined, as “the human costs of alienation from nature,” a modern problem that he believes really began in the 1970s. His book inspired the creation of the Children & Nature Network, which has provided support to public schools to bring nature back to their campuses with the Green Schoolyards initiative.

Children's Health

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, nearly 20% of children aged 3-17 years struggle with a mental, emotional, or behavioral challenge. Right here in DFW, that would be about 350,000 kids. The AAP cites a CDC study (2021-2023 data) indicating about 20% of adolescents age 12-17 have unmet mental health needs.

Children's mental health is just one of many reasons why schools need more gardens. Charlotte Olver of the Royal Horticultural Society in England shares "10 ways that gardening improves children and young people’s mental and physical health." Cathy Jordan with the non-profit Children & Nature Network writes about the therapeutic and learning outcome gains that children get from time spent in a garden. In 2009, a team of Dutch researchers found a lower incidence of 15 illnesses – including depression, anxiety, heart disease, diabetes, asthma, and migraines – in people who lived within half a mile of green space.

Erin Bunch writes about the value of community gardens in her article, "Being Outside Is Good For Your Body and Mind — Here's Why." Spending quality time in nature doesn't require taking a week-long trip out to a national park. It's about spending 15 minutes in nature each day, 5-7 days a week. Some place close to home that you can walk to and engage with neighbors. Dr. Aimee Daramus is a Chicago-based psychologist who specializes in anxiety, depression, and trauma. She writes: "Studies show that you can get really good results from urban green space, like parks and gardens [with just 15 minutes a day]. You don't have to wait until you can take a vacation in the woods to reap the benefits."

Dr. Heather Eliassen is a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. She writes: "Green spaces also offer opportunities for social interactions and community engagement, which have been linked beneficially to multiple health outcomes. This includes not only mental health benefits such as lower rates of depression, but also physical health benefits such as lowered rates of chronic disease. While these interactions can be as simple as running into a friend while walking your dog or meeting someone new in the park, they can also be facilitated by organizations such as community gardens..."

“[Time spent outdoors] provides a combination of stimulation of different senses and a break from typical overstimulation from urban environments,” she said. “Exposure to green space results in mental restoration and increased positive emotions and decreased anxiety and rumination. Improved mindfulness can result from exposure to green space as well.”

Improved Academic Performance

The replacement of STAAR testing with three, shorter tests during the school year with House Bill 8 looks very likely (as of early September). And with it, some possible changes to how TEA ranks school performance. How can having a school garden on campus help students achieve higher academic performance? Why should school principles and PTA leaders put in the time and effort to create new gardens?

Adrian Higgins with The Washington Post writes in 2016: "What is becoming clear is that in schools with gardens, the students do better. Many studies are bearing this out. In a newly published University of Maryland study of D.C. school gardens, researchers tracked significant differences in fifth-grade test results between students with gardens and those without. In reading, for example, 61 percent of students in garden schools tested as proficient or advanced, compared with 38 percent in schools without gardens. For math, the difference was 56 percent compared with 36 percent, and for science, 47 percent against 21 percent." That's a 20% point difference, between schools with a garden and those without one.

Social Emotional Learning

L inda Mathews with Washington State University writes specifically about vegetable gardening with school children, though many of the benefits she describes would likely apply to a wildlife garden as well. In DFW, vegetable gardens can be quite expensive to install, requiring soil amendments to our native heavy clay soil and irrigation systems during our hot, dry summers. A wildlife garden with drought-tolerant native plants needs none of these costly items and likely provides many of the same benefits for children.

She describes how school vegetable gardens support "social emotional learning." She cites multiple studies that show positive effects on science, math, and language arts academic outcomes as a result of garden-based learning. She cites qualitative findings from Blair (2009) which suggest that "students were delighted and motivated by the joys of gardening. Students' attitudes about school improved as well as pride in their garden and its produce. Parent involvement with the school increased. Community-building increased, including teamwork, student bonding, a broader range of student/adult interaction, and community outreach." A wildlife garden (lacking vegetables) may not result in healthier eating habits for children, but it would likely increase physical activity, community engagement, parent involvement, and student bonding.

Texas Sprouts program

In a study funded by the National Institutes of Health (2015-2020), 16 elementary schools across the Austin, Texas area were assigned by chance to either the 1-year garden intervention or control group, with a focus on 4th and 5th grade students.

"The intervention consisted of 18 one-hour gardening, nutrition, and cooking lessons taught in an outdoor teaching garden [funded by a $5000 grant] by trained educators throughout the academic year....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)." The study results were published in 2013 in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (Jaimie Davis et. al)

Austin and Houston ISDs

Austin ISD offers their communities the Green School Park Program which is "a network of school parks that provide schools, and the surrounding community, the opportunity to learn from, steward, and play in nature." The program was developed in coordination with Austin ISD, the city's Parks and Recreation Department, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, the Texas Children in Nature Network, and other partners. In Houston ISD and the Greater Houston area, the SPARK School Park Program began in the 1980s to build more community spaces on ISD properties, with over 200 new parks opened to the community since the program began.

A Garden For Every Child

Richardson ISD has 50 schools. Over 35,000 students. What would it cost for every school to have a 400 square foot garden? It would cost less than 50 cents per student. Not $0.50 per year.....less than $0.50 once. The plants purchased to build these gardens would raise $2000 for the Richardson Council of PTAs, supporting Richardson public school teachers. It would require 300 people, 6 per school, to pitch in $50, and 8 hours each to build the gardens.

Across DFW, over 600,000 students are educated in 13 school districts in 900+ schools. It's likely that 120,000 of these children face mental health challenges. These districts are Richardson, Carrollton-Farmers Branch, Irving, Arlington, Allen, Frisco, Lewisville, McKinney, Plano, Prosper, Denton, Fort Worth, and Dallas ISDs. These 900+ school campuses have lots of open space where gardens could easily be built. These gardens would give 35,000 plants to offer food and habitat for birds and other wildlife.

In Richardson ISD’s 50 schools, it would cost 38 cents per child to build the gardens. Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD, it would cost 47 cents per child. Irving ISD, 34 cents. Arlington ISD, 40 cents. Frisco and Allen ISD, 33 cents. Lewisville, 37 cents. McKinney, 40 cents. Plano, 50 cents. Prosper, 29 cents. Denton, 42 cents. Dallas, 50 cents. Fort Worth, 54 cents.

Community Garden Designs

How to Build the Garden

The 2016 University of Maryland Study

The 2016 University of Maryland study, "School Gardens in the City" by Rashawn Ray et. al. explores the quantitative impact of Washington, DC's funding for school gardens on academic performance. The study provides a sweeping review of the sociological conditions that impact academic performance, with reference to John Dewey and his support for school gardens over 100 years ago. A few excerpts are provided here:

"John Dewey believed that improving the social and physical environment would lead to better education opportunities....Schools like the Harlem Children Zone, which takes a holistic approach to learning by focusing on aspects inside and outside of the school walls, show the importance of tackling the social and physical environment around schools. Dewey specifically highlighted school gardens as physical and social environments to improve learning."

"Scholars have found that learning in school gardens positively influences academic achievement...as well as nutritional habits....and exercise habits....Our study examines how the Washington, DC School Garden Program serves as a potential gateway to reducing the achievement gap. We ask: Is the presence of a school garden in a school positively associated with student test scores in math, reading, and science?...." (page 380-381).

"Galston (2001) compares traditional classroom-based civic education to service learning. Service learning combines community-based learning with classroom experiences. More recently, scholars have noted the broader benefits of informal learning environments. Learning experiences in these informal contexts [like a school garden] are characterized as learner-motivated, interest-based, voluntary, open-ended, non-evaluative, and collaborative...."

"Moreover, students who have engaged in informal learning settings are more likely to view themselves as scientists as a result of participating in informal learning environments...A report from the National Academy of Sciences notes that experiences in informal settings can improve science-learning outcomes for groups that are historically underrepresented....As a result, major national organizations have shown support for informal science learning opportunities as a means to improving science literacy and addressing serious environmental issues (American Association for the Advancement of Science 1993; National Research Council 1996)."

"School gardens are increasingly becoming a common place for informal learning....In Schools of Tomorrow, Dewey and his daughter detailed several experimental schools that incorporated active learning through nature study and working school gardens....They concluded that school gardens incorporated the best practice pedagogy into instructional practice through participation in real-life activities...."

"Currently, over 3,000 school gardens are being used across the United States for educational purposes (National Gardening Association 2010). These so-called “garden-based learning” programs are found to have numerous positive effects on students. Academically, studies note that garden-based curricula improve the academic achievement of students....A recent synthesis of garden based learning research showed positive impacts on direct academic outcomes with the highest positive impact on science, followed by math and language arts..." (page 384)

"In her study of second graders, Carley Fisher-Maltese (2013) found that a garden-based science curriculum focused on insects resulted in a number of affordances, including notable improvements in science learning, cross-curricular lessons in an authentic setting, a sense of school community, positive shifts in attitude toward nature, and increased collaborative work among students....."

"As school gardens gain popularity across the U.S., understanding their potential impacts becomes increasingly important. Given the lack of cultural and social capital in lower-income communities, exposure to school gardens could result in larger payoffs related to academic achievement, environmental attitudes, and nutrition knowledge for students in these schools." (page 385)

"[The authors conclude:] Students who attend schools with gardens are more likely to perform at the proficient or advanced levels on standardized tests....A central part of our analysis was determining whether there is a significant and positive association between the presence of school gardens in schools and test scores. For math, reading, and science test scores, we found support for this proposition." (page 391-392)