Connected Gardening: Cultivating Interest and Investment in Data-Infused Gardening

• In Event: 26.024 - Collaborative Engagement and Science Learning via Technology

Abstract

This study considers the unique affordances of schools gardens as sites for data-infused gardening. In relation to the design of the Connected Gardening garden-based learning curriculum, we report a case study of one enactment spanning a five-month gardening cycle. Through co-design in collaboration with elementary school practitioners, we seek to illuminate and understand how 4th grade students shape and are shaped by their participation in a semester-long cycle of planning, monitoring, and harvesting a garden plot using an integrated network of environmental sensors. We examine whether, and how, students link and separate personal interests with their garden-based project and, in turn, how class-wide participation with the project unfolds over time.

Authors

• Steven J. Zuiker, Arizona State University

• Kyle Wright, Arizona State University