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Service Learning through a School Garden Program in Uganda
Dr. Gail Nonnecke, Professor in the Department of Horticulture, co-led a College of Agriculture and Life Sciences study abroad, service learning course to Uganda in June/July 2007. A bi-national team comprised of university students and faculty from Iowa State University and Makerere University in Uganda worked in school gardens and taught agriculture classes in elementary/middle schools. University students and faculty worked with school children and their teachers in school garden plots in the Namasagali Primary School and the Nakanyonyi Primary School in the Kamuli District. The Center for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods at Iowa State University and VEDCO, a nongovernmental organization in Uganda, Volunteer Efforts for Development Concern, were partners in the program. Primary school children benefit from the program by learning agriculture, food, and nutrition skills and by taking their new knowledge to their families and home gardens and farms. Food produced in the school gardens is used in school lunch programs in a district that has significant malnutrition. University students learn cross cultural and interdisciplinary methods of solving real world problems. This year's program included two horticulture undergraduate students, Susannah Stofer and Lisa Wasko. The 2007 study abroad course was the second year of the study abroad program that was initiated in 2006 when Lee Beck, a horticuture major, participated. Students interested in this program or other study abroad opportunities in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences may contact the college's study abroad office at 111 Curtiss Hall, Ames IA 50011, Shelley Taylor, Director, (e-mail at: ), or may view their website at: http://www.agstudyabroad.iastate.edu/
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