Benefits of Gardening for Children

Gardening provides different forms of engagement for children, including designing, planting, and maintaining gardens; harvesting, preparing, and sharing food; working cooperatively in groups; learning about science and nutrition; and creating art and stories inspired by gardens. The studies summarized have been selected because they include control groups, pre- and post-measures, well controlled correlations, or in-depth qualitative analyses. For more studies, see Blair (2009), "The child in the garden: An evaluative review of the benefits of school gardening."