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Final Report Ogunjini/ Ottawa

Anecdotes, survey data and statistical results
Feeding The Self

Produced in conjunction with

031 261 3177/elet@elet.org.za NPO # 1357/8701

This product can be freely used in classrooms, at homes and in communities Any person may use as much or as little of it as they want, and adjust it to suit their operational needs. The material herein may also be distributed to anyone who needs it and will make use of it.

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Accompanying documents ................................................................................................................................. 2 Complete Student Activities .......................................................................................................................... 2 Complete Lesson Plans .................................................................................................................................. 2 Complete Teaching Pack ................................................................................................................................ 2 Complete Posters ........................................................................................................................................... 2 Support Material ............................................................................................................................................ 2 Photo diaries .................................................................................................................................................. 2 Executive summary (from ELET funders report) ..................................................................................................... 3 School 1: Ottawa Primary ....................................................................................................................................... 6 Summary ............................................................................................................................................................ 6 Survey results: Ottawa ....................................................................................................................................... 6 What do the numbers tell us about ............................................................................................................ 7 interest? ...................................................................................................................................................... 7 academics? .................................................................................................................................................. 7 community? ................................................................................................................................................ 7 sustainability? ............................................................................................................................................. 7 Anecdotes from Ottawa ..................................................................................................................................... 8 Pride and motivation ..................................................................................................................................... 8 An unexpected invitation ............................................................................................................................... 8 Old dog, new tricks ........................................................................................................................................ 8 Real sustainability .......................................................................................................................................... 9 School 2: Ogunjini ................................................................................................................................................. 10 Summary .......................................................................................................................................................... 10 Student survey results Ogujnini ....................................................................................................................... 10 What does this tell us about ..................................................................................................................... 11 interest? .................................................................................................................................................... 11 academics? ................................................................................................................................................ 11 community? .............................................................................................................................................. 11 sustainability? ........................................................................................................................................... 11 Anecdotes from Ogunjini ................................................................................................................................. 12 Things dont always go as planned .............................................................................................................. 12 A new teacher a new ally ............................................................................................................................. 12 Less flowers? ................................................................................................................................................ 12 Why we do this ............................................................................................................................................ 12 Statistical data (from Ottawa) .............................................................................................................................. 14 Summary .......................................................................................................................................................... 14 Variance ........................................................................................................................................................... 14 What do the numbers tell us about .......................................................................................................... 15 interest? .................................................................................................................................................... 15 academics? ................................................................................................................................................ 15 community? .............................................................................................................................................. 15 sustainability? ........................................................................................................................................... 15 Mean, median and mode results ..................................................................................................................... 16 What does this tell us? ................................................................................................................................. 16 Correlations ...................................................................................................................................................... 17 What do the correlations tell us? ................................................................................................................ 18 Feeding the Self contact details ....................................................................................................................... 19

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Accompanying documents
The following materials were developed during the course of the project, and are freely available from our scribd archive.
Complete Student Activities

Designed for: Students (grade 5/6), other participants Type: Image heavy, data light Use: Introduces weekly activities in a simple, easy to read and follow form. Description: This includes a worksheet for each week the course runs designed to reveal certain aspects of the curriculum through hands on (practical) activity.
Complete Lesson Plans

Designed for: Type: Use: Description:

Teachers, facilitators, or anyone who wishes to learn/teach Text heavy lesson plans with ideas for teaching Introduces the garden as an educational resource for teaching in classroom This includes weekly integrated lesson plans designed around the activities, posters, and support material bringing garden activities into the classroom.
Complete Teaching Pack

Designed for: Type: Use: Description:

Anyone interested in running an educational or food securities garden project Combined data & Image rich material. Offers a complete ready for roll out education or food security project. This master pack includes all Student activity sheets, Lesson plans, posters and Support material; with planting guides and course breakdown.
Complete Posters

Designed for: Type: Use: Description:

Children at home, out and about, or in the classroom One page posters with image driven data. Classroom walls or any surface with educational potential. This includes an introductory poster and weekly posters that accompany the course, designed to reinforce a range of gardening concepts.
Support Material

Designed for: Type: Use: Description:

Teachers, facilitators, students, and anyone, or group, who wishes to learn/teach Image light, data driven. Any environment that wishes to use a garden to improve individual or community skill/knowledge. This material is designed so teachers can use garden activities as a way of developing a curriculum that meets Natural Science, Language and Life Orientation outcomes.
Photo diaries

Photos from the schools can be found online at www.feedingtheself.org, in the photo board produced for the funder, and are also available in a weekly diary form on CD.

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Executive summary (from ELET funders report)

Project period: ELET Project Manager: Facilitators:
1.

September 2011- March 2012 Govin Reddy Chirag Patel, Marc Robson, Nicholas Molver

Re-state the Project's objectives and planned activities

To teach students:

Also, to:

How to learn Curriculum content in a new, more accessible manner Basic agriculture Permaculture principles Create community Roll out into homes Roll out around school Provide teachers with examples of new teaching ideas and methods

2.

Describe progress in relation to the above objectives and planned activities.

All objectives were achieved as far as we could measure, as the survey data and anecdotes show. Further results from the Department of Education and longer term results from the school are required to state whether the objectives were achieved in a sustained manner, as they were designed to.
3. During the reporting period, what skills or training content has your project provided to participants?

As above
4. During the reporting period, what publications, manuals, materials was produced and provided?

See list of accompanying documents.

5. During the reporting period, how has your project contributed to improving teacher qualifications / capacity

a: b: c: d:
6.

Provided lesson plans for each week of the course that could be filed immediately, in accordance with Department of Education requirements Conducted a teacher training workshop at Ogunjini at the request of the principal Provided support material to help teachers understand curriculum content in a natural way provided weekly consultations for the teachers on garden and curriculum affairs
During the reporting period, how many trainees and beneficiaries were reached

Ottawa: The grade fives, two full classes (of around 45). Seeds and information also spread beyond the school through the learners, but the numbers are difficult to assess. Ogunjini: The grades sixes and grade ones (classes around 45). The garden was prepared for the grade sixes but the grade one class teacher utilized the space for her own classes without prompting. Seeds and information were also passed into the community via the learners.

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7. During the reporting period, how has your project contributed to improving formal examination

results and grades?

See attached survey results.

8. During the reporting period, how has your project contributed to helping learners to access the global economy through new educational and economic opportunities?

The nature of our project provides access to larger advantages by teaching the students about creative problem solving, ways of adapting to existing systems, and giving them the need to explore information in the wider world. Meaningful results on access to global economic and educational advantages can therefore only be seen in the long term.
9. During the period what follow up and monitoring was provided

Prior:

Garden dig Meeting with teachers During: Weekly consultations After: Once every month visits to the schools to check up on the garden, provide more seeds, etc. Due to the nature of the project, we operate as hands-off as possible, ensuring that ownership remains with the learners and educators at the school. However, we ensured that we visited the respective schools at least once a week in order to drop off new learning material, lesson plans, worksheets, seeds and equipment. These weekly visits were also done in order to listen to any problems or general questions that the educators might have had.
10. Describe how project beneficiaries and/or the community have participated in the Project over the

past year.

At Ottawa Primary: Even though we initially started with just one class at this school, they quickly took it on and started expanding it themselves. Very early on, and without any prompting from us, all of the grade six teachers created teaching groups to properly integrate the project across the curriculum. A few weeks later, the teachers in charge of the project proudly told us that parents were calling them, surprised at how much of a change their children were showing. They were more motivated and better behaved. Also without any prompting other than the materials we provided, over half of the Grade Sixes, across both classes, had started gardens at home, and these gardens were growing well; so well, in fact, that whilst visiting Ottawa we were invited by the children to come and see their home gardens, which they felt were growing better than the school ones. Embedding the project into the children, rather than the school, has always been a core focus of FTS activity, and this proved we were getting the results we hoped for much earlier than wed expected. As the students became more successful and the results of their labour more obvious they took more pride in their work and their general attitude changed. At Ogunjini Primary: We ran a workshop with the rest of the teachers to try and create understanding about both the project as well as an attempt to inspire interest in the importance of food production. Furthermore, we ran a parents day with the kids and their parents that we were directly involved with, handing out seed kits and information to all participating as well as giving some hands on instruction within the school garden. This went down very well and we were approached by a number of students not involved in the parents day who wanted seeds to plant at their homes.

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Our initial contact teacher was Mr Msomi. We also worked with Mrs Zama Mfekayi, both in regards to keeping her up to date on the garden project, as well as to help and advise her with her own fledgling community gardening project. In the later stages of our project run, a Mr Patel started teaching at the school. He was very interested in the project and became our third contact at Ogunjini. With our help he started the project from scratch with his class and was very successful.
11. Describe any problems or obstacles encountered which have slowed the project down or caused changes to project plans.

Approximately midway through the project there was a large heat-wave that hit the Durban area which lasted for some time. This damaged or killed many of the plants at both schools. This was not so much a problem as a change in pace, as the learners and educators had to do replanting. As the project is meant to be flexible and easily incorporate any problems, the effect of drought and the subsequent replanting could simply be worked into the curriculum fairly easily. We were met by many frustrations working at Ogunjini. Firstly was the fact that there was little space for the garden project as the open ground the school has was turned into a construction site for the building of a new wing to the school. This meant that the only available land was a thin strip behind the school. Although the small size was not a real problem, the issue was that out of sight is out of mind. And with the garden hidden away combined with a disheartening lack of interest by the initial contact teacher, and staff in general, meant that the garden and its associated worksheets and lesson plans were not fully utilised. We later discovered that the initial contact teacher was not a trained teacher, which left us to conclude that there was a good possibility that this was a factor in the teachers lack of involvement and that he actually did not have the required training to make use of the lesson plans and learner worksheets we provided.
12. Describe any other changes that have taken place inside and/or outside the organization which have necessitated major changes in Project direction.

The project direction is largely determined by local rather than external requirements, being adapted each week to changing conditions on the ground. As such, we did not have any significant major changes as a result of action outside the project.
13. Attach any other relevant documents or reports.

See the rest of this doc

Appendix: list of Educators & schools

Ottawa Contact 1 Contact 2 Contact 3 Ogunjini Contact 1 Contact 2 Contact 3

Position Principal Grade 6 (general) Grade 6 (English) Principal Grade 5 & 6 (general) Grade 6 (general) Grade 6 & 7 (maths, soc. Sci)

Name Mrs T P Masane Mrs Lindiwe Mabaso Mr Nkosinati Malimela Mr V S Khunni Mrs Zama Mfekayi Mr Msomi Mr Patel

Contact number 072 246 5657 072 865 7434 082 502 9688 082 377 2284 073 163 9837 084 861 9000 083 786 8298

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School 1: Ottawa Primary

Summary
Ottawa Primary is a large school in the Verulam area which has been recently relocated. This relocation was to move the school closer to the students it served, since a great number of them were coming to harm on the way to or from school. As with many urban under resourced schools, it has a significant problem with crime and abuse, and very large class sizes (around 50). That being said, the principal at the school is very proactive, and the teachers are very dedicated. It has a large area of available land on-site, but has problem with incursions from goats and chickens that live in the neighbouring township. During the course of the project, the garden was significantly expanded by the staff and students, and continues to thrive and expand.

Survey results: Ottawa

The following table is the average result taken across two grade six classes at Ottawa Primary, totaling sixty eight students. Each of these questions could be answered: No (1), Not Really (2), Mostly (3), and Yes (4 ).

Do you feel like the garden project has helped you with your Are you enjoying working with your group? Have you been using your log book? Are you enjoying working in the garden? Are you finding the project interesting? Do you feel a personal (not just work) connection with your Have you spoken to other people at school about your work? Do you feel better after working in the garden? Is the garden work helping your other school work? Have you spoken to family members about your work? Do you feel proud of the garden and your work in it? Do you think you will continue gardening at home after the If your answer to the above question is no, is there anybody you Did you know anything about growing food before? Have you given seeds to anyone? Have you started a garden at home? Are you noticing plants/animals/insects in your environment If so, is it growing well? Have you spoken to adults in your community about your work?

3.78 3.78 3.68 3.68 3.65 3.61 3.55 3.55 3.55 3.54 3.51 3.3 3.17 3.03 2.62 2.58 2.56 2.41 2.38 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4

1 = No, 4 = Yes

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What do the survey results tell us about

These results reflect that a small number of students either did not answer the question or misunderstood the question; assigned zero. In standard analysis these would usually not be counted, however, FTS wished to avoid making assumptions. A standard approach would in most instances improve the results slightly with a notable exception: Do you feel proud of the garden and your work in it? Here many struggled with the question; if you ignore misunderstandings then the average improves significantly.
interest?

The questions are you enjoying working in the garden; and, are you finding the project the project interesting yield results of 3.68 and 3.65 respectively. Indicating the learners find the project interesting and enjoyable. In the context of a school this is good because it improves learner participation and motivation, which will lead to an improvement in performance in school. This helps with classroom management as learners focus more on learning. Interest in the school garden project also spilled over resulting in learners starting gardens at home; a result of 2.58 indicates over half the students are growing food at home.
academics?

The question do you feel like the garden project has helped with your natural science work yields3.78; demonstrating the students feel their time in the garden is helping them understand natural science. This will increase the desire to learn the subject. Also, have you been using your log book returns an encouraging 3.68 suggesting the learners are producing written records. In the context of communities with low levels of literacy this is a real positive. Also the question is the garden work helping your other school work returns a 3.55; this indicates an improvement in many learners overall outlook and approach to school work.
community?

The questions, have you spoken to adults in your community about your work, and, have you spoken to family members about your work, return 2.38 and 3.54 respectively. This suggests that the idea of gardening is spreading beyond the school garden and classroom. In lowest of the results we still find over half the students speaking with members of the broader community, i.e. adults outside of family. Alongside talking to their own families knowledge/ideas are moving from school/classroom into communities. Beyond this we see, in 2.62, that students have given seeds to people outside the school; with even more students, in 3.17, wanting to give seeds to members of their community. In preparing home gardens, talking to community members, and handing out seeds avenues for moving expertise from schools into the community are open.
sustainability?

Sustainability is seen in the 2.58 result to, have you started a garden at home? The result indicates that over half of the students are growing food, also the intention to continue doing so is high at 3.3 (i.e. nearly all students who have started a garden), which is important because the intention is strong even though some of the students feel their garden is not doing very well, 2.41. These, however, are straightforward measures and true sustainability is also found in the move from the school into the community and improvements in learner attitudes as a result of the project. These ensure that the school itself has positive incentives to maintain ownership of the garden project and keep it going as FTS reduces contact with the school. Sustainability is maintained because students finding the project interesting and relevant, even pending the academic results; and are disseminating knowledge and practice into the community.

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Anecdotes from Ottawa

Pride and motivation

A central plank of the projects is pride; if the learners and teachers take ownership of the garden, and take a personal pride in it, we can be sure of strong and lasting engagement. Generating pride is one of the areas in which we worry most, however; after all, how does one make someone else take pride in their work when youre the one instructing them in it? As with all of the schools, we initially started with just one class, with the intention of convincing other teachers that they should roll it out for their classes, too. Before we could, however, the teachers and students took it on and started expanding it themselves. Very early on, and without any prompting from us, all of the grade six teachers created a teaching group to properly integrate the project across the curriculum. A few weeks later, the teachers in charge of the project proudly told us that parents were calling them surprised at how much of a change their children were showing. They were more motivated and better behaved. Also without any prompting other than the materials we provided, over half of the Grade Sixes, across both classes, had started gardens at home. Embedding the project into the children, rather than the school, has always been a core focus of FTS activity, and this proved we were getting the results we hoped for much earlier than wed expected. As the students became more successful and the results of their labour more obvious they took more pride in their work and their general attitude changed .
An unexpected invitation

Part of the project is encouraging children to grow gardens at home. It is, however, difficult to know how many of them are doing this successfully after all, we cannot invite ourselves around to pass judgement on their home gardens it feels too invasive, and so we only really know what we can find out in the surveys. One bright Tuesday, however, we arrived at the school to see, the always encouraging, happy faces working in the garden. On one visit we were greeted with more than the usual questions about what could be done to improve the quality of the garden. As one of the learners outlined with some pride how his garden at home was doing very well, better in fact than the school garden, he invited FTS to come and see his home garden. This was quickly followed by all the children in the garden that morning inviting us to come and see how well their home gardens were doing.

Old dog, new tricks

One of the things about being a principal is that, after a while, youve seen everything. Or so the principal at Ottawa thought, until one day she was surprised by a request from her students that she had NEVER, in all her years of teaching, encountered. The learners actually wanted to come into the school over the weekend, separate from class time, and work. They didnt want teachers or supervision or any reward; they had taken so much pride in the garden that they wanted to make sure it was constantly being maintained, without any prompting or guidance from the teachers. Self-directed learning through lifelong learning practices is the core objective of OBE; it may have failed across the system, but here, because of the garden, it had set in so much the students were asking for the chance to do it outside of the school curriculum.

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Real sustainability

Many otherwise successful community garden projects eventually end because the garden is kept up by only one or two interested stake-holders. This means, sadly, if these motivated individuals move on the projects will close because the community cannot decide who will take it over, we wanted to avoid this problem. To make sure the project sticks, we need it to be spread across the school, not just within one grade; the children need to be talking to each other about it, outside class, and across grade boundaries. While we were thinking about this, we decided to try and encourage a buddy system. The only problem was, the schools had arrived came to the conclusion first; due to the success of the project the teachers at Ottawa discussed, without any additional prompting from FTS, rolling out the project to the lower grades, and when we spoke to them about it, we found they already had plans in place. Their idea was to use the motivation of the current set of students working in the garden to introduce it to the younger ones, especially those within the foundation phase that way, they could make sure that the knowledge stayed in the school as long as possible, even if teachers changed or left.

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School 2: Ogunjini
Summary
Ogunjini is a school on tribal land. There are significant resource problems in the area, both physical and human; for example, during a large part of the project period, the water supply to the school was broken, and water had to be brought in by tanker each week. The students all come from the surrounding tribal area, and as with many of the more rural schools they have problem with teacher underdevelopment and retention of good teachers. Although the soil in the area is extremely fertile, the school only has a small area of usable land, and gardens at students homes were a problem because of a lack of fencing and a prevalence of chickens.

Student survey results Ogujnini

(45 students in survey group, yes/no answers)
Are you enjoying working in the garden? Are you finding the project interesting? Have you spoken to family members about your work? Is the garden work helping your other school work? Has the project has helped with your natural science work? Are you enjoying working with your group? If so, is it growing well? Do you think you will continue gardening at home? Did you know anything about growing food before? Have you spoken to other people at school about your work? Have you started a garden at home? Have you spoken to adults in your community about your work? Do you feel better after working in the garden? Have you started a log book? Are you noticing plants/animals/insects more than before? Is there anybody you want to give seeds to? Have you given seeds to anyone? 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 51% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% 89% 89% 87% 84% 84% 80% 78% 76% 76% 73% 73% 69% 64% 60% 100% 98%

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What does this tell us about interest?

The students like the project, and think it is helping them. 100% of students find working in the garden enjoyable and 98% find it interesting, this means that students are more positive about being at school.
academics?

The students think the garden is helping their school work. 87% report a deeper understanding of Natural Science and 87% report that they feel the project helping them with their school work in general. This reflects that the learners are encouraged to be at school and by school. This is a result of seeing the point of it. If the curriculum is not relevant to the context of the learner then a teacher can talk until they are blue in the face and get nowhere. Growing food is centrally important to these learners because for many it would mean genuine food security. The project has visible academic value. With respect to the education in an area with low parental literacy rates we can see, nevertheless, 68% of learners are using a log book and recording their activities in the garden this must be understood against the background of a community where reading only occurs within school.
community?

The project has social cachet. This is seen in 89% of students talking about their school experiences with parents The project has visible community value. 76% of learners are growing food gardens at home, so giving them practical advice on how to improve those gardens and use them as a window into Natural Science has clear benefits; especially when
sustainability?

The project work is likely to continue independently. 80% of those who are already growing a food gardening indicate an intention to continue. As the number of people within the community growing productive gardens increases then you would expect the percentage of home food gardeners to rise as well.

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Anecdotes from Ogunjini

Things dont always go as planned

When you go into a school and get introduced to the person in charge of grade six it is natural to assume that they are a teacher by training. This view remains true even though the media often talks about the critical shortage of teachers within certain areas and communities. Hearing stories like this doesnt prepare you for the on the ground reality experienced in some under-resourced schools. At Ogunjini, our contact teacher was enthusiastic but was, as it turned out, not a qualified teacher. This was not his fault or the schools, there were not enough staff to cover all the classes so the school was forced to recruit willing members of the community. We only discovered this late into the project. Seemingly out of the blue we found ourselves restarting the project, virtually from scratch, with Mr Patel who had been placed at the school. How long he would be there, however, is uncertain because the government did not take into consideration his logistical needs when placing him at the school and so he has already asked to be moved. It just goes to show that the best plans really do change the moment they move off the planning board and into the field.
A new teacher a new ally

Often when you have to restart something from scratch, especially after you have invested some time in getting it going the first time is quite disheartening. As a person you worry about all the reasons you have to go back to the beginning did I make a mistake looms over restarting. But restarting in this instance offered new potential energy. You always like to think you have good ideas, with us at FTS it is no different. The new teacher at Ogunjini, Mr Patel, offered some confirmation that we were walking the right path. As a new teacher in a new environment he did not have to be welcoming of three guys thinking they knew something about helping children learn. It did not take him long to see the eagerness with which the learners got out into the garden and worked. Within no time he was asking us for ways to help him take learners into the garden and bring the garden into the classroom. With Mr Patel any worries about how things would run with a new teacher, not obligated to help us, turned out to be unnecessary.
Less flowers?

When you think of a garden you think of flowers, right? With lawns, the garden is a place of peace and beauty to relax in. So coming from middle-class backgrounds we at FTS did not expect to have to defend planting flowers in a garden. This was a lesson in not making assumptions about where you are based on where you are from. We suggested letting the learners plant flowers in the garden and around the school. The school, however, exists within a completely different space to us: both rural and economically under-resourced. This is the place that two of the older teachers, gardeners themselves, came from when they commented that you cannot eat flowers. This caught us off guard, but for their needs the gardens primary function is different. They are primarily concerned with growing food as opposed to making the environment more pleasant. Fortunately the flowers we suggested they plant will help the garden grow and so serve to improve yield as well.
Why we do this

In all of the above, it must be remembered that we take as much of a hands off approach as we possibly can. We provide seeds, tools, and material for the children and teachers, but apply no pressure ourselves, trying to

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keep our interactions with the school minimal, and allowing the teachers to roll the project out however they see fit. This would be cause for concern in many similar projects, where far more is spent on providing gardening material and equipment that go unused; for it has proven a cause of pride and joy, as we see teachers and children taking up the project with drive and determination. A good example is the planting of gardens at home; we went to a couple of schools where, despite the provision at significant cost of mulch, compost, seedlings, and tyres (for planting in), the children and teachers had simply left these things to slowly degrade. For us, we gave them only seeds, and a little instruction, and in all locations the majority of children planted gardens at home.

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Statistical data (from Ottawa)

Summary
Because the surveys conducted at Ogunjini were yes/ no rather than a scale from not at all to definite yes, we are unable to provide statistical analysis for that school. However, the following data gives an idea of the way in which the project worked at Ottawa, expressing those aspects that hung together well, those parts of the project that do not seem to be related to other parts and how consistent the results from the students were. The data presented here gives information on how to read it, but gives an overview of the results rather a than a detailed analysis of each point. The data was analysed using standard algorithms from the Microsoft Office 2010 Analysis Tool pack plug-in. If you would like to see the Excel sheets, raw survey data and calculations, please contact us on 0735 578 909 or at chirag.patel@feedingtheself.org and we will forward it to you with further notes. It is also available online through our Scribd collections.

Variance
Groups Enjoying working in the garden? Finding the project interesting? Previous knowledge? Started a garden at home? If so, is it growing well? Noticing plants/animals/insects more? Continue gardening at home after project end? Enjoying working with your group? Garden work helping other school work? feel better after working in the garden? Given seeds to anyone? Anybody you want to give seeds to? Spoken to other people at school? Spoken to family members? Spoken to adults in your community? Helped with natural science work? Been using your log book? Feel a personal connection with your garden? Feel proud of the garden and your work in it? Average 3.68 3.65 3.03 2.58 2.41 2.56 3.30 3.78 3.55 3.55 2.62 3.17 3.55 3.54 2.38 3.78 3.68 3.61 3.51 Variance 1.01 1.05 2.06 2.31 2.39 1.86 1.86 0.79 1.25 1.34 2.41 2.06 1.22 1.31 2.41 0.61 0.96 1.18 1.61

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What do the numbers tell us about

When the variance is low it suggests that the spread of answers was clustered near the average; so a variance of 0.96 alongside the average of 3.68 suggests that the students are answering primarily with a yes (4) and very few said no (1).These results include an assumed no as questions not properly answered (whatever the reason) are given a zero value. Without the zero the variances would either be lower or unchanged.
interest?

Many students responded yes (4) to whether or not they enjoyed the project. The variance is an indicator that some did say no, but very few. What is promising is that the variance for enjoying group work is very low; which will mitigate the slightly higher variance for project enjoyment and interest as the learners will encourage one another.
academics?

The variances in the academic questions are the lowest: 0.61 (helping natural science) and 0.96 (using log books). This is encouraging as it indicates almost none of students responded no to these questions. The exception being helping other school work having a variance of 1.25 expected as the effects would not be apparent to the learners.
community?

The variances here are high, as expected. This is because of the nature of the community outreach, for example, you either hand out seeds or dont. Consider that variance of 2.41 next to the 2.62 (given seeds to anyone), here students are either answering 1 (no) or 4 (yes). Similar results are spread across other community outreach responses; the exception being speaking to family members yes dominating.
sustainability?

Responses to growing a food garden, as expected, have a high variance as the learner is gardening or not. Still many learners are growing food at home. A similar variance is expected, and seen, in how the gardens are doing. This reflects different environmental factors, such as soil quality, work put in, and available space. What is interesting is that despite the high variance in how well the garden is doing, it is low with respect to continuing to garden. This indicates that learners are not letting setbacks stop them from gardening. With the pride in their work this project sets a foundation for long term sustainability.

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Mean, median and mode results

enjoying working in the garden? Mean Median Mode Standard Deviation Sample Variance Skewness 3.68 4 4 1.01 1.01

Finding the project interesting?

Previous knowledge?

Started a garden at home? 2.58 4 4 1.52 2.31

If so, is it growing well?

Noticing plants, animals&insects more?

Continue gardening at home after project end? 3.30 4 4 1.36 1.86

Enjoying working with your group? 3.78 4 4 0.89 0.79

Garden helping other school work? 3.55 4 4 1.12 1.25

Feel better after working in the garden? 3.55 4 4 1.16 1.34

Given seeds to anyone?

Anybody you want to give seeds to? 3.17 4 4 1.43 2.06

Spoken to other people at school ? 3.55 4 4 1.11 1.22

spoken to family members ?

spoken to adults in your community ? 2.38 2 4 1.55 2.41

helped with natural science work? 3.78 4 4 0.78 0.61

Been using your log book? 3.68 4 4 0.98 0.96

Feel a personal connection with your garden? 3.61 4 4 1.09 1.18

3.65 4 4 1.03 1.05

3.03 4 4 1.43 2.06

2.41 3 4 1.55 2.39

2.56 2 4 1.37 1.86

2.62 4 4 1.55 2.41

3.54 4 4 1.15 1.31

Feel proud of the garden and your work in it? 3.51 4 4 1.27 1.61

-3.05

-2.86

-0.82

-0.23

-0.17

-0.25

-1.58

-3.95

-2.21

-2.38

-0.33

-1.33

-2.39

-2.15

0.02

-3.75

-2.91

-2.69

-2.34

What does this tell us?

The mode in all questions is four this tells us that across all questions (yes) is the most common answer. What is encouraging is that in many cases the median is also four, which suggests that half or more of the students are responding with yes. In only three cases do you have less than half of the responses being yes With how well the garden is growing the halfway is 3 (mostly) which suggests that the majority of students respond that the garden is mostly, or better, growing well. In the case of speaking to adults, this is to be expected as the answer is either yes of no. With noticing animals and life, which is evaluative, learners are distributed more evenly across the four responses, but the mode is still four. Standard deviation tells you gradient of the curve Variance tells you size of the curve. In this case, the lower the variance, the more a result is true that is, the less it is a result of an even distribution around the given result. A wide variance would mean that many students fell some distance away from the given result, while a small one means that the result is narrow. Skewness tells you the spikiness of the curve. A level of 0 skew means that the results have a smooth curve. In this case, the more negative the skew, the better since this indicates that there is a spike in a single place, which then indicates that a single result is being consistently found rather than a range that averages at that result.

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Correlations
enjoying working in the garden? enjoying working in the garden? finding the project interesting? Previous knowledge? started a garden at home? If so, is it growing well? noticing plants/animals/inse cts more? continue gardening at home after project end? enjoying working with your group? garden work helping other school work? feel better after working in the garden? given seeds to anyone? anybody you want to give seeds to? spoken to other people at school ? spoken to family members ? spoken to adults in your community ? helped with natural science work? been using your log book? feel a personal connection with your garden? feel proud of the garden and your work in it? finding the project interesti ng? Previous knowled ge? started a garden at home? If so, is it growing well? noticing plants/a nimals/i nsects more? continue gardenin g at home after project end? enjoying working with your group? garden work helping other school work? feel better after working in the garden? given seeds to anyone? anybody you want to give seeds to? spoken to other people at school ? spoken to family member s? spoken to adults in your commun ity ? helped with natural science work? been using your log book? feel a personal connecti on with your garden? feel proud of the garden and your work in it?

1.00 0.74 0.33 1.00 0.46 0.23 0.22 0.35 0.37 0.29 1.00 0.45 0.54 1.00 0.81 0.25 1.00 0.39 1.00

0.23 0.38

0.27

0.30

0.34 0.23

1.00 1.00 0.25 1.00

0.32

0.27

0.21

0.16 0.51 0.47 0.28 0.28 0.26

0.23 0.54 0.51 0.60 0.39 0.26 0.39 0.31 0.41 0.26

0.52 0.44

1.00 0.21 1.00 0.37 1.00 0.34 0.45 0.35 0.21 0.43 0.32 0.30 0.28 1.00 0.47 0.25 0.31 0.44 1.00 1.00 0.26 0.23 1.00 0.56 1.00 1.00

0.25

0.24

0.36

0.48 0.41

0.44 0.34

0.21 0.27 0.20 0.21 0.25

0.21 0.25

0.36 0.30 0.25

0.23

0.33 0.21

0.22

0.44

0.46

0.28

0.63

1.00

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What do the correlations tell us?

A correlation of 1 means that these two results are always found together; for example, a student will always give both questions a 3, or give both questions a 4. This indicates that these criteria are closely bound together. A low correlation (closer to 0) means that the answers vary, so a students answer might be 1 and 3 or 2 and 4. This means there is only a weak connection between these two questions, and they do not influence each other (student reporting is not consistent when answering them). In turn, this means that we cannot assume a strong link between these aspects of the project. A good answer is one that correlates strongly with all other answers. This would indicate that it is measuring something that is strongly integrated across the entire project, making it a core factor in determining our overall success. A poor answer is one which either does not correlate or correlates weakly ( > 0.2) with other questions. This indicates that it is measuring something that is not related in a significant way to the rest of the project. A very poor answer would have negative correlations, indicating that aspects of the project are inversely dependant on one another; that is, that for that aspect to succeed, the negatively correlated aspect would have to fail.
Sample analysis

There is a strong correlation between spoken to other people at school and continue gardening at home; 0.60. This tells us that if a student is speaking with their peers or teachers at school then they will probably continue gardening at home. Indeed continue gardening at home correlates with eleven of the questions which indicate the areas of the project we would focus on in order to get people to continue gardening. These are the variables which could determine if an individual would continue gardening at home. Interestingly is that the list of correlations with noticing plants/animals/insects more is quite broad. This suggests that most of the project relies upon, and fosters, observation of the natural environment in which the learners live, and that the project is successful in changing the leaners attitudes toward the world around them. As expected the correlation between started a garden at home and if so, is it growing well is high; 0.81. This is expected because in order for a garden to be growing well a garden must have been planted. What is interesting, however, is that enjoying working in the garden does not correlate with continue gardening at home but finding the project interesting does. This implies that focusing on making something interesting is more important than making it fun.

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Feeding the Self contact details

Chirag Patel chirag.patel@feedingtheself.org Nicholas Molver nick.molver@feedingtheself.org Marc Robson marc.robson@feedingtheself.org Website: Coordinator; Project design &Strategy 0735578909 Oversight, analysis 0780622204 Lesson and material design 0842613244 www.feedingtheself.org

Chirag.patel@feedingtheself.org | 0749 031 332 / 0735 578 909 FTS garden & teaching docs | General teaching material Gardening research | Useful NGO docs Project data All material free to use, copy or distribute Donate at http://apotheosis.givengain.org Feeding The Self is a trademark of Apotheosis, PBO# 930038248