Engineering Education in Support of Urban Gardening

Brenden DrInkard-Mcfarland; David Delaine; Zachary Smith

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Conference: 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Publication Date: August 23, 2022
Start Date: June 26, 2022
End Date: June 29, 2022
Conference Session: Student Division Technical 1: Diversity, Equity, Inclusivity (DEI)
Page Count: 8
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--40885
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/40885
Download Count: 295

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Paper Authors

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Brenden DrInkard-Mcfarland The Ohio State University

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Brenden Drinkard-McFarland is a first year Engineering Education PhD student at the Ohio State University. His research interests include exploring university-community partnerships and their impacts on student engagement and community support.

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David Delaine

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Zachary Smith The Ohio State University

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Abstract

University engineering programs can complement urban gardening spaces through reciprocal support. These urban gardens serve the communities they host in numerous ways, yet university engineering programs in garden contexts are often predominantly focused on research or student learning while rarely acknowledging the social goals of the garden. We hypothesize that by understanding how engineering programs and urban gardens can work better together, student learning and community empowerment can be more readily enabled. In this work in progress, we consolidated literature identifying overlaps in urban gardening, engineering education, and community engagement. Thirty-one articles in university-community urban gardening-partnerships were collected from keyword searches using available databases. The identified literature suggests that the urban garden serves as a centralized location for community interaction and impact. Various engineering projects showed potential in providing additional value to the garden and surrounding community. Student involvement across the spectrum (K-12, undergraduate, graduate) has positive benefits from the perspective of the university and the community. Therefore, urban gardens can provide natural and meaningful context to partnerships within engineering education. Our findings also illustrate the challenge of communication found in these spaces. Engineering-garden partnerships can lack reciprocal efforts that lead to shifts in partnership dynamics. The continued impacts and challenges faced by urban gardens are substantial, and therefore require an equally large joint effort to address. From this we consider: What does existing literature on university community partnerships suggest about engineering’s potential to collaborate with and support urban gardens? We find that while existing literature has begun to explore sustainable efforts of engineering and garden partnerships, further work needs to be completed to ensure social goals of all stakeholders are met. Future research in this area should incorporate active inclusion of engineering, medical, and social programs to best support the urban garden in serving its community. Students involved would have access to learning material while supplementing the longevity of the urban garden. We plan to utilize participatory research to build upon our findings.

Citation
Format

DrInkard-Mcfarland, B., & Delaine, D., & Smith, Z. (2022, August), Engineering Education in Support of Urban Gardening Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--40885

TY - CPAPER
AB - University engineering programs can complement urban gardening spaces through reciprocal support. These urban gardens serve the communities they host in numerous ways, yet university engineering programs in garden contexts are often predominantly focused on research or student learning while rarely acknowledging the social goals of the garden. We hypothesize that by understanding how engineering programs and urban gardens can work better together, student learning and community empowerment can be more readily enabled. In this work in progress, we consolidated literature identifying overlaps in urban gardening, engineering education, and community engagement. Thirty-one articles in university-community urban gardening-partnerships were collected from keyword searches using available databases. The identified literature suggests that the urban garden serves as a centralized location for community interaction and impact. Various engineering projects showed potential in providing additional value to the garden and surrounding community. Student involvement across the spectrum (K-12, undergraduate, graduate) has positive benefits from the perspective of the university and the community. Therefore, urban gardens can provide natural and meaningful context to partnerships within engineering education. Our findings also illustrate the challenge of communication found in these spaces. Engineering-garden partnerships can lack reciprocal efforts that lead to shifts in partnership dynamics. The continued impacts and challenges faced by urban gardens are substantial, and therefore require an equally large joint effort to address. From this we consider: What does existing literature on university community partnerships suggest about engineering’s potential to collaborate with and support urban gardens? We find that while existing literature has begun to explore sustainable efforts of engineering and garden partnerships, further work needs to be completed to ensure social goals of all stakeholders are met. Future research in this area should incorporate active inclusion of engineering, medical, and social programs to best support the urban garden in serving its community. Students involved would have access to learning material while supplementing the longevity of the urban garden. We plan to utilize participatory research to build upon our findings.
AU - Brenden DrInkard-Mcfarland
AU - David Delaine
AU - Zachary Smith
CY - Minneapolis, MN
DA - 2022/08/23
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Engineering Education in Support of Urban Gardening
UR - https://peer.asee.org/40885
DO - 10.18260/1-2--40885
ER -