Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Growing Local: The Role Of Urban Gardening In Fostering Food Security, Sustainability, And Community, Franklin Wagner, Lindsey Payne

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

The downtown center of Lafayette, Indiana is situated in a food desert where access to healthy, nutritious food can be limited. Urban gardens are an effective way to increase access to healthy alternatives while also providing a number of benefits to the surrounding area, including opportunities for community growth, education, and physical activity. In summer 2016, researchers from Purdue University collaborated with Lafayette’s GrowLocal Urban Gardens Network (GrowLocal) to perform a baseline analysis of the current community gardening initiatives, and explore the possibilities for expansion, development, and future community involvement through urban gardening.

Both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods …

Measuring And Disseminating Organizational Leadership Through Impact, Sarah Baumer, Alfredo Karduss

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

Our service learning experience as teaching assistants for Professor Brett Crawford’s Foundations of Organizational Leadership course (TLI112) included collaborating with community partners such as the Wabash River Enhancement Corporation, successfully acquiring grant funding as principal investigators, inventorying needs for native plants to replace weeds and invasive species, and disseminating our experiences through various measures of impact. Our efforts fit within a transformation of a large lecture course, moving away from passive learning and toward experiential activities that included 1,340 hours of community service during a single semester. Community service impacts were measured, including links between the Global Reporting Initiatives and …