• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.119-126
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• 2019

This study was conducted to examine effects of community gardening on job stress and job satisfaction experienced by public officials in general administration working in a 24-hour shift. The subjects were public officials at the Center for Missing Children in the Department of Women and Adolescents at the National Police Agency. The center receives initial reports of disappearance of missing children, the elderly with dementia, and people with intellectual disabilities, sends out the report to each police station, and clears the report after the missing individual is found. Twelve public officials working at the center in a double shift (full day off after a night shift, four-day interval) were grouped into four teams and total 11 of them participated in the experiment. They engaged in autonomous community gardening activities such as sowing seeds, cultivating plants, harvesting, or cooking in the workplace for five weeks from August 19 to September 22, 2018. The findings were as follows. After five weeks of autonomous gardening activities, job stress of the subjects decreased significantly. Their mean scores of job satisfaction and organizational commitment under organizational effectiveness showed a significant increase after the activities. Finally, there were significant differences in their self-esteem after participating in the gardening activities in the workplace. These results suggest that gardening activities in the workplace can help to manage job stress and quality of work life for shift workers.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.31 no.11
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• pp.959-965
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• 2022

Through psychological evaluation, this study attempted to verify the effect of quality of life improvements from gardening activities in apartment landscaping spaces. The study was conducted on 32 mothers raising children. Psychological valuation was conducted using world Health Organization Quality of Life questionnaire(WHOQOL-Bref), the Satisfaction with Life Scale(SWLS), the Life Satisfaction Experience Scale(LSES), and the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised(SCL-90-R). The psychological analysis results showed that, engaging in gardening activities for two weeks had, a positive effect on mothers' environmental of quality of life evaluation. The LSES indicates that satisfaction with oneself significantly increased after starting the gardening activities. The activity resulted in a positive change in attitude toward life. The SCL-90-R results showed changes in the mother's psychological state. There was a significant amelioration of obesessive-compulsive behaviors, hostility, and phobic anxiety. In conclusion, this study was found that, for mothers in apartments, outdoor gardening activities can significantly affect their quality of life. Moreover, it can help prevent mental health deterioration, Further study should be conducted on the beneficial effects of gardening on the variety of age groups and activities.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.225-236
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• 2024

This study aimed to propose a gardening program that can be introduced in elderly care facilities and is effective by inducing active activities of the elderly, conducting a gardening program that can lead to healing functions and social activities, and identifying psychological and physiological changes before and after the gardening program is implemented. In order to achieve the above objectives, we conducted 30 gardening programs for 20 elderly people living at Chungju Senior Nursing Home from May 2023 to October of the same year to create three gardens. And as a result of evaluating the results of the gardening program, the psychological evaluation showed statistically improved results in most evaluation items, and the EEG improved to a statistically significant number as the gardening program was carried out in the measurement of mental and physical stress using EEG and pulse waves.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.20 no.7
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• pp.292-301
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• 2020

This study explored the changes in nutrition knowledge and eating habits formation of infants through vegetable gardening activities in early childhood education institutions. children from H nursery school located in Suwon-si, Gyeonggi-do, and H nursery school located in Hwaseong-si, Gyeonggi-do, were divided into 18 experimental groups and 18 people from comparison group and pre-post analysis was conducted. The research tool analyzed the data collected using the nutrition knowledge measuring tool and the eating habits measuring tool using the program SPSS, and the analysis method was conducted with t-test(verification) to verify the homogeneity of the experimental group and the comparative group. Analysis result, first. Infants aged 3 to 4 in experimental groups who have experienced vegetable gardening activities have higher nutritional knowledge than infants in comparison groups. In the case of nutrition knowledge, there was no statistically significant difference between the experimental group and the comparative group before the vegetable gardening activities were carried out. But after the experimental treatment, the experimental group showed statistically significant differences in improving the concept of nutritional knowledge (the reason for eating food, the type and function of food, hygiene, and garden) in the post-examination of the comparative group. Second, it can be seen that infants aged 3 to 4 in experimental groups who experienced vegetable gardening activities showed significant differences in table manners and eating behavior among sub-factors of eating habits compared to infants in comparison groups who had never experienced them. In conclusion, vegetable gardening activities are educationally useful in terms of expecting positive changes in the nutrition knowledge and eating habits formation of infants.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.451-460
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• 2021

Background and objective: The prolonged COVID-19 pandemic has had significant impacts on mental health, which has emerged as a major public health issue around the world. This study aimed to analyze trends and network structure of 'grow-your-own (GYO)' through Instagram, one of the most influential social media platforms, to encourage and sustain home gardening activities for promotion of emotional support and physical health. Methods: A total of 6,388 posts including keyword hashtags '#gyo' and '#growyourown' on Instagram from June 13, 2020 to April 13, 2021 were collected. Word embedding was performed using Word2Vec library, and 7 clusters were identified with K-means clustering: GYO, garden and gardening, allotment, kitchen garden, sustainability, urban gardening, etc. Moreover, we conducted social network analysis to determine the centrality of related words and visualized the results using Gephi 0.9.2. Results: The analysis showed that various combinations of words, such as #growourrownfood, #growourrownveggies, and #growwhatyoueat revealed preference and interest of users in GYO, and appeared to encourage their activities on Instagram. In particular, #gardeningtips, #greenfingers, #goodlife, #gardeninglife, #gardensofinstagram were found to express positive emotions and pride as a gardener by sharing their daily gardening lives. Users were participating in urban gardening through #allotment, #raisedbeds, #kitchengarden and we could identify trends toward self-sufficiency and sustainable living. Conclusion: Based on these findings, it is expected that the trend data of GYO, which is a form of urban gardening, can be used as the basic data to establish urban gardening plans considering each characteristic, such as the emotions and identity of participants as well as their dispositions.

• Horticultural Science & Technology
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.123-128
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• 2014

This study investigated the exercise intensity and energy expenditure involved in two gardening activities (planting transplants and sowing seeds in a garden plot) and four common physical activities (running, skipping rope, walking, and throwing a ball) in children. Eighteen children aged 11 to 13 years (mean age, $12.3{\pm}0.7$ years) participated in this study. The children made two visits to a high tunnel in Cheongju, Chungbuk, South Korea and performed randomly selected activities. Each activity was performed for 10 min, with a 5-min rest period between activities. The children wore a Cosmed $K4b^2$ (Cosmed $K4b^2$; Cosmed, Rome, Italy), which is a portable calorimetric monitoring system, to measure indicators of metabolic cost such as oxygen uptake and energy expenditure. The children's heart rates during the activities were measured by radiotelemetry (Polar T 31; FitMed, Kempele, Finland). We found that the two gardening and four physical activities performed by the 11-13 years old children in this study were moderate-to high-intensity physical activities [i.e.,$5.4{\pm}0.7$ to $9.1{\pm}1.4$ metabolic equivalents (METs)]. Running ($9.1{\pm}1.4$ METs) and skipping rope ($8.8{\pm}1.1$ METs) were high-intensity physical activities, whereas walking ($6.1{\pm}0.9$ METs), planting transplants ($5.8{\pm}1.1$ METs), throwing a ball ($5.6{\pm}1.1$ METs), and sowing seeds ($5.4{\pm}0.7$ METs) were moderate intensity physical activities. Running and skipping rope were significantly more intense than the other activities (P < 0.0001). The gardening tasks such as planting transplants and sowing seeds in a garden plot showed similar exercise intensities and energy costs as walking and throwing a ball. This study indicates that gardening can be used as a physical activity intervention to provide health benefits similar to more common physical activities such as walking and running.

• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.65 no.2
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• pp.89-92
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• 2022

In this study, the effects of soil conditions on antioxidant activities of the aerial and underground parts of rosemary were assessed to determine the most effective soil conditions for cultivation. The antioxidant activity was the highest (51.58±2.93 ㎍/mL) when cultivated in the mixture of gardening soil and vermiculite using DPPH assay. The antioxidant activity of underground parts the highest (127.48±12.38 ㎍/mL) when cultivated in the mixture of soil, vermiculite, and perlite. ABTS assay showed that the antioxidant activity of aerial parts was 230.34±57.93 ㎍·mL^-1 when cultivated in the mixture of gardening soil and vermiculite and that of underground parts was 320.98±16.04 ㎍·mL^-1 when cultivated in the mixture of gardening soil, vermiculite, and perlite. The total phenolic content of aerial parts was the highest (155.25±2.96 mg GAE/g) when cultivated in the mixture of gardening soil. The total flavonoid content of aerial parts was the highest (67.32±5.27 mg QE/g) when cultivated in the mixture of gardening soil. Therefore, the mixture of gardening soil, vermiculite, and perlite is superior to gardening soil alone for cultivation of rosemary to increase its antioxidant activity as well as total phenolic and flavonoid content.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.139-148
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• 2020

Urban problems raised by the concentration of population in urban areas have caused residents to migrate to other regions while causing other problems such as deteriorated infrastructure, traffic and environmental pollution problems in existing urban areas. As an alternative to improve this phenomenon, urban regeneration has emerged, and under the assumption that creating community vegetable gardens is effective in revitalizing cities considering their physical, social and cultural environment, frequency and descriptive analyses were conducted on the vegetable gardens in Jungnosong-dong, Wansan-gu, Jeonju-si, Jeollabuk-do, Korea to examine differences in the components of the surrounding environment and the settlement, and community spirit of the two groups comprised of 30 and 35 persons who did not and did participate in gardening respectively. Regression analysis were conducted to determine whether there were changes in community spirit after participating in gardening. As a component of the surrounding environment, gardening and fence management were found to be important for both the groups, and they seemed to have high satisfaction with their residence because they wanted to continue to live in their neighborhood. Overall, the satisfaction evaluation results showed that those who participated in gardening showed a higher satisfaction level than those who did not. Based on the changes in community spirit after participating in the activity, it was found that there was a high level of perception in all the components, indicating that the gardening had a positive effect on the cultivation of community spirit. As such, the spaces called vegetable gardens are not only for doing physical activities but also as shared conversation topics, and through the activities in the gardens, changes in the awareness of local residents can be brought about through the formation of social networks and natural communication between neighbors. It can be concluded that they encourage residents to actively participate in improving the urban environment through activities such as planting.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.221-231
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• 2020

Since elementary school is a time in which basic concepts like attitudes and mindsets about careers are formed, career education is very important to elementary school students. This study was conducted to investigate the effects of a gardening program applying the academic disciplines of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics, and Society (STEAMS) on developing career education for elementary school students. In order to determine the effectiveness of the program on career development of elementary school students, this study was conducted with 28 upper elementary students in the experimental group who participated in the gardening program, and 30 upper elementary students in the control group who did not. The program was comprised of total 8 sessions, one session per week, with various garden activities. The career development scores of the two groups before and after the program were comparatively analyzed. Before the program, the experimental group had significantly lower scores for career development than the control group. After 8 weeks of the program, the control group did not show any changes in career development, while the experimental group that participated in the program showed a significant increase in career development, resulting in no difference in career development between the two groups after the program. Therefore, the program has positive effects on improving career development of upper elementary students who previously had insufficient career development. Overall, the program had positive effects on career development of upper elementary students, and further research is needed to systematically promote the STEAMS-based gardening program to promote interest and understanding of students by associating plant-based gardening activities with various subjects such as science, art, and social studies.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.59-67
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• 2022

The main purpose of this study is to quantitatively grasp the effectiveness of the gardening program by conducting a gardening program to induce active activities of the elderly and to induce healing functions and social activities, and then observing the results before and after implementation. In order to achieve the purpose of the study, as a result of conducting 30 gardening programs for 20 elderly people at two elderly care facilities, the measure of depression was found to have an improvement effect as a practice-oriented program, and it was found to revitalize the elderly. In addition, it was found that the quality of life was improved by the gardening program, and it was found to be helpful in activating the brain.