ARTeenGarden

Latest News

Featured Student »Marshall Featured Student: Summer Relation During this past semester my class and I have been doing great things in the garden. We have picked squash bugs, planted, harvested, and my favorite part, learned. I have looked at learning in a different way ever since the garden started. I do hope we will have it next year. 7th graders and 8th graders should get more active in the garden because if they don’t, then they will wish that they had in the future.

Mabelvale Garden Update »Mabelvale Garden Update This past week, Karl Heinbockel and fellow Delta Garden Study interns have had the opportunity to escape the fluorescent lights of the office and work in the bright sunshine at the Mabelvale Magnet Middle School gardens and greenhouse. In spite of the oppressive heat, there is still much to do to prepare for the coming school year at Mabelvale Magnet Middle School. We are removing the residue from last year's crops (and weeds!) and replacing them with a buckwheat cover crop to revitalize the soil. The buckwheat cover crop suppresses weed growth and once tilled in will add important organic material back into the soil. This allows new plants the ample nutrients necessary to blossom with great vigor. Healthy soil has been our focus this summer. In the fall, we will concentrate our efforts at producing a variety of food crops with the help of our students at Mabelvale! In the coming weeks, we will be continuing to clean up and organize the garden and greenhouse spaces so that this school year will be a great one for Delta Garden Study's showcase garden - Mabelvale!

FrontPage Article »See the Progress on our New Gardens! Don't forget to visit our Garden Schools’ webpages for pictures and stories about the progress of our new gardens. Liana, Kevin, Ryan and Cale have been busy developing their sites, planting a late summer garden, and getting to know their communities. Many thanks to all of their community members who have donated materials, equipment and labor!

About The Delta Garden Study »About The Delta Garden Study The Delta Garden Study is a $2 million research study funded by the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service designed to prevent childhood obesity and social risk behaviors, and improve academic achievement, in middle school children in the Delta and Central regions of Arkansas.

Student of the Week: Highland's Tressie Rhoades

I never knew what I was before I had the opportunity to participate in the Delta Garden Study. Everything we do has contributed to my learning experiencea t Highland Highl School, even the walk to and from our marvelous garden and greenhouse! Not only do we get to try lots of different fruits and vegetables that I’ve never heard of (almost all of them have been delicious), we also get the experience of working in a real-life atmosphere instead of sitting in a boring old classroom all week! Since the beginning of my 8th grade year when we put the Delta Garden Study in action, I have learned all about what it takes to run an efficient eco-friendly garden. My instructors, Mr. Kevin and Ms. Jackie, have not only piqued my awareness of how we are draining all of our natural resources, but what we can do to stop it, too. This study puts science into a whole new light; I now am beginning to understand how to apply all that I learn in the classroom to real life. I know I wouldn’t have been able to do that without the awesome Delta Garden Study. This program has truly enriched my life of learning!

School of the Week: Marshall High School

This weather is weird, isn’t it? This winter has been one of the mildest any Arkansan I speak to can remember. One year ago here at Marshall, school was snowed out for five days straight the first week of February. In 2012 we’re focused on getting our spring garden up and running as soon as possible, and this week has been dedicated to starting seeds in the greenhouse. Instead of enjoying snowball fights and sledding, Rachel and our students have been happily hard at work in our greenhouse starting over 1,750 individual seeds of approximately two dozen varieties of lettuce, collards, kale, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, onions, basil, cilantro, celery and Chinese cabbage. And we’re not finished there! Next week, we plan on starting more early herbs along with our first slow-growing peppers and tomatoes. In another week or two we’ll do it all over again in order to have seedlings for our spring succession plantings. Everyone seems to think Marshall is due a big winter storm sometime in February and I hope we are, too. But it’s also great knowing that true spring is right around the corner, and we’re going to be ready for it with plenty of healthy vegetable seedlings to plant outside when the weather warms up for good.

Study Timeline

About the Delta Garden Study

The Delta Garden Study is a $2 million research study funded by the USDA's Agriculture Research Service, designed to prevent childhood obesity and social risk behaviors, and improve academic achievement, in middle school children in the Delta and Central regions of Arkansas. Led by Dr. Judy Weber, Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics in the College of Medicine at UAMS, the study's primary outcome variables are increased fruit and vegetable intake and increased minutes of physical activity. Secondary variables include reduction in body mass index (BMI) and body fat, reductions in social risk behaviors, and increased school bonding, improved student grade point averages and benchmark testing scores.

Delta Garden Study is Recruiting Schools

The Delta Garden Study School Recruitment Team is actively seeking middle schools in the Delta and Central regions of the state to participate in the 2012-2013 academic year.

Intervention study schools will receive:

	1 acre garden with Greenhouse
	Full time Garden Manager for 12 months
	All necessary tools and materials to support the garden
	Full year of garden-based science lesson plans mapped to the state frameworks
	Technical support from the Delta Garden Study Staff

Internships

Interested in doing an internship for Delta Garden Study? Fall internship positions are available and applications will be accepted on a rolling basis until August 15th. Check out our Internships Positions available.

Application deadlines are:

Summer - March 31st
Fall - August 15th
Spring - November 15th

Join Our Mailing List

ACHRI's Annual Report

The ACHRI Childhood Obesity Prevention Program, of which the Delta Garden Study, under the direction of Dr. Judith Weber, is a key component, was recently featured in the Arkansas Children’s Hospital Research Institute’s 2011 Annual Report. The program provides leadership and coordination at the local and state levels for research, education, and policy that focus on understanding the causes of infant, childhood, and adolescent overweight and obesity and on addressing strategies for the prevention and reduction of this epidemic. To learn more about the program, please visit the program website

Delta Garden Study named as a FoodCorps Host Site
as Part of 10-State Launch

FoodCorps, a new national AmeriCorps school garden and farm-to-school service program, has named the DGS as one of 10 Host Sites it will collaborate with to launch the initiative. FoodCorps will serve vulnerable children, improving access to healthy, affordable food, while training young leaders for careers in food and agriculture. FoodCorps service members will be placed at each of our four garden schools during the 2011-2012 school year

See the Progress on our New Gardens!

Don't forget to visit our Garden Schools’ webpages for pictures and stories about the progress of our new gardens. Liana, Kevin, Ryan and Cale have been busy developing their sites, planting a late summer garden, and getting to know their communities. Many thanks to all of their community members who have donated materials, equipment and labor!