School Gardening in Early Childhood Education in Oman: A pilot project with Grade 2 Students

Title
School Gardening in Early Childhood Education in Oman: A pilot project with Grade 2 Students
Publication Date
2019-04-04
Author(s)
Ambusaidi, Abdulla
Al-Yahyai, Rashid
Taylor, Subhashni
Taylor, Neil
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8438-319X
Email: ntaylor6@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:ntaylor6
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
International Council of Associations for Science Education
Place of publication
Turkey
DOI
10.33828/sei.v30.i1.6
UNE publication id
une:1959.11/27655
Abstract

While school gardens are familiar in many Western contexts and research has reported significant pedagogical and affective benefits of these resources, there is limited reporting of their use in non-Western contexts. A pilot school gardening project involving a quasi-experimental mixed method design was undertaken in the Sultanate of Oman with several Grade 2 and Grade 7 classes to determine if this resource might provide benefits in this particular context. This paper reports on the findings for the Grade 2 cohort. While these findings were somewhat mixed and need to be treated tentatively given that the study was a pilot, they did suggest that school gardens in Oman could provide affective and possibly health benefits for students. The potential health benefits could be particularly significant because the Omani population is beginning to exhibit a rapid increase in "lifestyle diseases", most notably diabetes and cardiovascular illnesses. These illnesses appear to be linked to poor dietary habits and a more sedentary lifestyle among the younger generation.

Link
Citation
Science Education International, 30(1), p. 45-55
ISSN
2077-2327
Start page
45
End page
55

Files:

NameSizeformatDescriptionLink