public health sphere.
Methods: Semi-structured interviews were collected from 55 adults from the South Phoenix community between November 2009 and September 2010. Interviews were digitally recorded with participant permission and transcribed. Of those collected, 48 transcribed interviews were analyzed using a codebook designed by the researcher. Percent agreement evaluated inter-rater reliability.Results: Latino immigrants in South Phoenix largely agree that health quality is heavily dependent on personal responsibility and not an intrinsic attribute of a given place. Emotional contentedness and distress, both factors of mental health, are impacted by cross-cultural differences between Latino and U.S. culture systems.
Conclusions: As people’s personal perceptions of differences in health are complex concepts influenced by personal backgrounds, culture, and beliefs, attempting to demark a side of the border as ‘healthier’ than the other using personal perceptions is overly simplified and misses central concepts. Instead, exploration of individual variables impacting health allowed this study to gain a more nuanced understanding in how people determine quality of both personal and environmental health. While Latino migrants in South Phoenix largely agree that health is based on personal responsibility and choices, many nonetheless experience higher levels of contentedness and emotional health in their country of origin.
This research paper assesses the effectiveness of a remote garden-based learning curriculum in teaching elementary students’ basic systems thinking concepts. Five remote lessons were designed, covering different garden topics, and in order to integrate systems thinking concepts, the Systems Thinking Hierarchical Model was used. This model includes eight emergent characteristics of systems thinking necessary for developing systems thinking competency. Five students were given the remote garden-based learning lessons. Student work was evaluated for systems thinking understanding and student outcomes were compared to anticipated learning outcomes. Results suggest that elementary students are able to understand basic systems thinking concepts because student work met anticipated outcomes for four systems thinking characteristics and exceeded anticipated outcomes for one characteristic. These results are significant because they further confirm that elementary-aged students do have the ability to understand systems thinking and they contribute to a growing movement to integrate sustainability education into elementary curriculum.