Ian Davies

GFI Fellow - Class of 2015

Undergraduate Student, Environmental Science;
Minors in GIS, Geography/Environmental Studies
UCLA

Project

Growing Connections Between UC Student Farms and Gardens

Description

UC contains a vast diversity of student-led farm and garden initiatives, all of different sizes and purposes. Yet student garden coordinators are largely unaware of the work being done across UC, oftentimes struggling with problems that other campuses have already learned how to solve. With this in mind, our project aims to construct a website through which garden coordinators can learn from each other and connect.

Goals

The deliverables of this project are a written report that will be sent out to all garden coordinators upon completion and a website that will be hosted and maintained by UCLA student garden coordinators for the benefit of all campuses. Our goal is to share best practices and facilitate communication and experimentation between the burgeoning campus gardens across UC.

Future Plans

We are planning on visiting the remaining three UC campuses during the beginning of summer and launching the website and report before fall 2015. As for me personally, I will be conducting research at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability under Director Peter Kareiva. Because I’ll be staying on campus, I plan on continuing to lead our campus garden group, Dig @ UCLA, and facilitating the expansion projects that are in progress. This project grew out of a very real need we felt as garden coordinators to learn from our peers and avoid reinventing the wheel, so to speak, so I will work on making the website a useful tool for all campuses.

Mentors

Wendy Slusser and Louise Ino, UCLA, with help from garden coordinators at each of the UC campuses