Gardening Activities, Education, and Self-Esteem

Numerous articles have been written about the impact of community-based work and self-esteem, self-efficacy, and gardening in an educational environment. Empirical data suggest that when students have become involved in a group effort designed to improve a school, community, or society, a sense of interdependency and loyalty to that institution develops. The purpose of the current article is to illustrate the effects of a gardening program on improving gardening self-esteem and reducing ethnocentrism among community college students. An additional goal of the study was to illustrate how the improvements in self-esteem among students also resulted in increased community involvement and awareness. Results of the study suggest that when a learning institution provides mechanisms for students to contribute to the overall quality of the institution (such as a campus gardening program), a sense of interdependency and positive self-empowerment develops among faculty and students.