Potential for urban agriculture to support accessible and impactful undergraduate biology education

Abstract Active learning in STEM education is essential for engaging the diverse pool of scholars needed to address pressing environmental and social challenges. However, active learning formats are difficult to scale and their incorporation into STEM teaching at U.S. universities varies widely. Here, we argue that urban agriculture as a theme can significantly increase active learning in undergraduate biology education by facilitating outdoor fieldwork and community‐engaged education. We begin by reviewing benefits of field courses and community engagement activities for undergraduate biology and discuss constraints to their broader implementation. We then describe how urban agriculture can connect biology concepts to pressing global changes, provide field research opportunities, and connect students to communities. Next, we assess the extent to which urban agriculture and related themes have already been incorporated into biology‐related programs in the United States using a review of major programs, reports on how campus gardens are used, and case studies from five higher education institutions (HEIs) engaging with this issue. We found that while field experiences are fairly common in major biology programs, community engagement opportunities are rare, and urban agriculture is almost nonexistent in course descriptions. We also found that many U.S. HEIs have campus gardens, but evidence suggests that they are rarely used in biology courses. Finally, case studies of five HEIs highlight innovative programming but also significant opportunities for further implementation. Together, our results suggest that urban agriculture is rarely incorporated into undergraduate biology in the United States, but there are significant prospects for doing so. We end with recommendations for integrating urban agriculture into undergraduate biology, including the development of campus gardens, research programs, community engagement partnerships, and collaborative networks. If done with care, this integration could help students make community contributions within required coursework, and help instructors feel a greater sense of accomplishment in an era of uncertainty.


| INTRODUC TI ON
Undergraduate attrition from science fields is a significant problem in the United States. Less than 40% of U.S. students (and ~20% of students from underrepresented groups) who start university with an interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) actually graduate with an STEM degree (PCAST, 2012). This attrition contributes to a shortage of available science and health professionals and teachers (Chen, 2013;Chen et al., 2018) and represents lost investments for the students who switch majors or drop out altogether. Attrition of underrepresented students is particularly worrisome given that a diverse community of scientists reduces bias in scientific reasoning and makes science more inviting to a broader talent pool (Intemann, 2009;Sulik et al., 2021). Moreover, selective attrition negatively impacts classroom dynamics by reducing the range of identities and backgrounds contributing to the educational process.
One reason identified for STEM attrition is because science content and class activities can seem inaccessible and lack relevance, especially for first-generation college students from a variety of economic, racial, and ethnic backgrounds (Estrada et al., 2016;Seymour & Hunter, 2019). Concepts in biology involve complex processes at scales that can be difficult to perceive. Furthermore, introductory laboratories are often built around easy-to-follow procedures where instructors know what the results will be, leaving students with the impression that biology-and more generally, the scientific methodinvolves following established protocols and measuring expected outcomes. In addition, STEM instruction rarely connects to pressing social challenges that many students are keenly aware of.

Recent summaries of education research have suggested ways
to address these shortcomings. The 2011 American Association for the Advancement of Science's (AAAS) Vision and Change report outlined guidelines to improve undergraduate biology education and highlighted core concepts and competencies required for modern biologists (AAAS, 2011, Figure 1). It emphasized integrating these core concepts and competencies throughout the curriculum and focusing on students as active participants in the educational process, among other recommendations. To help students develop this conceptual understanding and these competencies, programs began moving from lecture to active learning formats (Freeman et al., 2014) and created course-and non-course-based undergraduate research experiences (Banger & Brownell, 2014). Evidence suggests that this movement has had particular benefits for STEM students from underrepresented backgrounds and for female students in maledominated fields (Haak et al., 2011;Odom et al., 2021). Subsequent reports have emphasized the overwhelming evidence from educational research about the benefits of active learning innovations that have increased student engagement by creating student-centered, inquiry-rich experiences (Laursen, 2019).
However, despite their educational benefits, immersive, active learning formats are often difficult to scale and the extent to which they have been incorporated into STEM teaching at U.S. universities varies widely (Laursen, 2019;Nguyen et al., 2021;Stains et al., 2018). Two approaches for scaling up active learning in biology involve the incorporation of outdoor fieldwork (Easton & Gilburn, 2012) and the use of community-engaged education . Although both approaches have been shown to improve learning outcomes in undergraduate students, both face significant barriers to broad implementation in biology (described more thoroughly below).
Here we argue that urban agriculture, which includes everything from backyard urban gardening to large-scale food production operations in cities (Wortman & Lovell, 2013), has a largely untapped potential to integrate field experiences and community-engaged F I G U R E 1 Conceptual framework linking urban agriculture to biology curriculum grounded by the AAAS Vision and Change report (AAAS, 2011) education into undergraduate biology education. Urban agriculture can provide active learning, research-intensive educational experience in a way that can be practically applied to a large number of students. At the same time, development of undergraduate biology experiences around urban agriculture can help biology departments and their universities develop lasting and mutually beneficial engagements with community organizations that can in turn inspire student learning.
We begin with an overview of potential educational benefits of fieldwork and community engagement for undergraduate biology and discuss constraints to implementation. We then describe how urban agriculture programs can help to overcome these constraints.
We assess the extent to which urban agriculture has been incorporated into undergraduate biology curricula using both a review of major programs and an analysis of a database from the American Association for Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) and present case studies of urban agriculture activities in bioscience departments at five higher education institutions (HEIs). Finally, we make recommendations for how to incorporate urban agriculture into undergraduate biology education. Given our collective expertise, we focus our discussion on HEIs in the United States, but we hope that it can help with reform in undergraduate biology education in other countries as well. While our presentation in some ways parallels calls for the development of "sustainable food systems education" aimed at future professionals (e.g., Sterling et al., 2021), we suggest instead that incorporating urban agriculture into undergraduate biology will benefit all biology students, regardless of career interests, by engaging them in basic science and exposing them to pressing community challenges.

| B ENEFITS AND CHALLENG E S TO FIELD -BA S ED AND COMMUNIT Y-ORIENTED B IOLOGY EDUC ATION
Although field (outdoor) experiences have long been viewed as essential to biology education, recent reviews have documented the decline in field-oriented courses in U.S. higher education (Easton & Gilburn, 2012;Fleischner et al., 2017). Field courses can engage students in active, research-oriented learning, help them gain environmental knowledge, and inspire them to social responsibility around sustainability issues. These experiences can help students integrate knowledge and achieve higher-order learning (Durrant & Hartman, 2015;Easton & Gilburn, 2012) and can reduce achievement gaps correlated with gender and racial identity and socioeconomic status (Beltran et al., 2020). Despite these benefits, field experiences are becoming increasingly limited because of the increasing institutional focus on liability issues and the financial and time requirements for field experience development (Fleischner et al., 2017). Although the Undergraduate Field Experiences Research Network (https://ufern.net/) is increasing field experiences at field and marine stations, these experiences will likely still be out of reach for many students.
Community-engaged education has similarly received increased emphasis due to the growing awareness that HIEs must produce graduates who have the awareness to address pressing social challenges . Multiple methods have emerged to increase community engagement for HEI students, including service learning, community-engaged learning, and community outreach programs (Schatteman, 2014), and this engagement has been extended further through the emergence of citizen science (NASEM, 2018). These educational efforts build off findings that many students are motivated to help others , and community-oriented experiences have been shown to pique students' interests, enhance learning outcomes, improve retention of female-identifying students in STEM, and lead to more students expressing interest in pursuing service-related career opportunities after college (Diekman et al., 2015;Mehta et al., 2015;Ryan, 2017;Tannenbaum & Berrett, 2005). Although community-engaged education has the potential to be incorporated into STEM education as a complement to content-oriented coursework and on-campus environmental activism, its incorporation into U.S. undergraduate biology education is rare (Zizka et al., 2021, and see below, but see Marx et al., 2021, Yep et al., 2021. Barriers to broader implementation include resources, time, or experience to develop connections with community partners, challenges in obtaining institutional support , and frameworks to help students connect theoretical classroom content to application in communities (Zizka et al., 2021).
Urban agriculture has the potential to expand field-oriented and community-engaged education into undergraduate biology programs in a way that is both practical and impactful, especially for students on urban campuses. Urban agriculture experiences can provide field course experiences on or near campuses (see below), overcoming the time and resource requirements that are significant barriers to implementing field courses that serve large numbers of students. Urban agriculture can also allow for the application and extension of traditional biology theory in diverse subdisciplines.
Finally, urban agriculture is at the core of many community engagement/service-learning experiences in other disciplines, and introducing a "community-oriented" urban agriculture into biology courses should provide new ways for biology departments to help students and faculty connect their activities to social challenges.

| P OTENTIAL RECIPRO C AL REL ATI ON S HIP OF URBAN AG RICULTURE AND UNDERG R ADUATE B IOLOGY EDUC ATION
Urban agriculture has rapidly expanded in North America through the development of community gardens and small farms (Fox, 2018;Rizzo, 2021). Although some commercial urban agriculture has arisen, urban agriculture's expansion has been driven primarily by an This ideologically based emergence suggests that urban agriculture as a theme can align well with core concepts and competencies highlighted in Vision and Change ( Figure 1). First, the topic serves as a connection between two major global trends, the rapid expansion of urbanization (Elmqvist et al., 2019;Seto et al., 2011) and the economic and environmental challenges facing global agriculture (Foley et al., 2011;Rockström et al., 2017). Second, urban agriculture makes biology concepts more apparent for students.
Production and other crop features are easy-to-visualize outcomes that can make biological concepts, such as adaptation, reproduction, development, productivity, and interactions, tangible across various scales of organization. This tangibility can benefit biology majors but may be particularly relevant for nonmajors with limited exposure to instruction on the process of science. Third, urban agriculture's small scale creates opportunities for replication across gardens or plots within gardens, making it well suited for teaching experimental design, interactions, and systems thinking. Fourth, urban agriculture is practical; sites can be on or close to campus and supplies are relatively inexpensive. Fifth, urban agriculture has many social benefits, including foregrounding indigenous knowledge and agricultural heritage and helping to build connections among diverse communities. And sixth, urban agriculture and more generally food systems as a theme can connect undergraduate biology to chronic disease and other human health challenges that are particularly engaging for the large number of undergraduate biology majors interested in health care as a career.
Together, these features of urban agriculture suggest that its use in biology education can engage students by connecting them to local and global challenges that resonate with them.
Below, we describe the present state of and future opportunities for urban agriculture in undergraduate biology. First, we survey top-rated research and liberal arts colleges to describe whether and how food systems, community engagement, and, more specifically, urban agriculture are currently incorporated into biology curricula.
Second, we assess how campus gardens are being used in undergraduate teaching and research to determine the extent to which these gardens could help biologists incorporate urban agriculture into their courses. Third, we present brief case studies focused on biology programs at five universities and colleges to identify opportunities for further incorporation of urban agriculture. We end with some suggestions for future expansion and for overcoming barriers to implementation.

| URBAN AG RI CULTURE IN THE CURRICULUM-CURRENT S TATE
We used three types of information to assess the current extent to which urban agriculture has been incorporated into undergraduate biology education in the United States: a review of major programs, an assessment using a database from AASHE, and case studies from developing programs. Although each assessment type has limitations, collectively they provide information about opportunities and TA B L E 1 Summary information from course descriptions in Biology-related departments in top-ranked research HEIs (n = 20) and liberal arts HEIs (n = 20)

Search term(s)
"field" (related to field experiences for students) "communit" OR "service" OR "experientia" (related to community-engaged learning) "food" OR "agricultur" OR "agro" (related to food systems) "urban" (related to urban systems) "urban agriculture" constraints on the widescale development of the approach we are highlighting.

| Current presence of urban agriculture and related themes in major HEI biology programs
In October 2021, we surveyed online presentations of biology or biology-related programs in 40 top-rated research and liberal arts HEIs to assess the extent to which community-oriented urban agriculture has been incorporated into U.S. biology curricula. We identified HEIs for this survey using U.S. News Reports. Although we are agnostic regarding the educational value of these reports, we focus on them as a way to identify programs that are highlighted for their potential value to prospective students.
We used publicly available course catalog information from each institution to conduct the survey. We surveyed catalogs to find descriptions of all courses with a BIOL or equivalent course label at each institution. We first sought to identify titles and descriptions for content focused on urban agriculture and related themes.
Specifically, we searched for (1) "food," "agricultur," or "agro," (2) "urban," and (3) "urban agriculture" and screened all positive returns to determine if courses were associated with human food systems, urban areas, and urban agriculture, respectively. Then, we searched for courses that advertised field experiences and community engagement activities-main general benefits of urban agriculture-to determine the extent to which these benefits are already present in undergraduate biology curricula. Specifically, we searched course titles and descriptions for (1) "field" and (2) "communit," "service," or "experiential" and screened all positive returns to identify courses that advertised field experiences and community engagement activities, respectively.
Our survey reveals several interesting findings about urban agriculture, field biology, and community engagement in undergraduate biology ( There are caveats when considering the results of this survey.
Instructors may incorporate modules and themes into courses without mentioning them in course descriptions, which are often generic and general to provide flexibility for instructors seeking to deliver dynamic content. In addition, many schools give faculty opportunities to offer "topics courses" that are more experimental and specific. These courses are only reviewed by college-or university-level curriculum committees after several iterations. As a result, our survey is likely missing course content and projects that are related to urban food systems and communities. Most importantly, our survey of "top-rated" schools is not a random sample of U.S. HEIs and thus unlikely represents accurately the challenges facing undergraduate biology education nor the extent to which creative solutions are emerging to address those challenges. In particular, the presence of field experiences in pristine locations is likely overrepresented in well-resourced schools given the costs of these experiences. In addition, it is possible that "urban" as a theme is underrepresented in top-rated liberal arts colleges in particular given that many of these schools are in nonurban settings.
Regardless, we draw several conclusions from these results.
First, food systems and urbanization as themes are not common in undergraduate biology curricula, at least in our surveyed institutions. There are several reasons for this scarcity, including that these themes may be well represented in other departments or schools at the institution. Regardless, this rarity suggests that undergraduate biology has the opportunity to adjust curricular offerings to help students address pressing global challenges.
Second, urban agriculture as a theme is essentially nonexistent in biology programs at top-rated schools. Finally, field experiences, a main potential benefit of urban agriculture, are fairly common, but it is unclear how widespread and costly these experiences currently are. Another main benefit of urban agriculture for biologycommunity engagement-is very rare in these programs. Together, these results suggest that there is a significant opportunity for expansion of urban agriculture and related themes in undergraduate biology.

| Campus gardens in undergraduate biology education?
Another source of information about urban agriculture in biology education is assessing the extent to which campus gardens are incorporated into biology curricula. Food gardens on HEI campuses have become much more common over the past few decades, and research has shown that they can provide diverse benefits to students, faculty, institutions, and surrounding communities (Marsh et al., 2020). For students and faculty, campus gardens can provide field-based teaching and research opportunities across diverse disciplines (Scoggins, 2010, and see our review below), contribute positively to student mental health (Cupples & Finewood, 2018), and increase student access to organic foods (Ullevig et al., 2020 Regardless of these caveats, these results suggest that urban agriculture-related projects are very common at HEIs, and there is significant opportunity for expanding their use in undergraduate biology education.

| Case studies
Our case studies provide additional context and ideas about how urban agriculture might be incorporated into undergraduate biology.
We focus on five institutions represented by the authors-University   (Small et al., 2017) and quantifying nutrient loss and recovery from different fertilization and planting strategies (Shrestha et al., 2020). As a teaching resource, the SG has provided tangible and accessible opportunities for developing core STEM competencies, including systems thinking, engaging broadly with the scientific process, and linking science to society (Figure 1), through experiences in nonmajors, core, and upper-division courses, while helping students make connections between STEM, the liberal arts, and social/ environmental challenges. These educational benefits led to the development of the NSF-UBE network. Finally, as a community engagement resource, the SG site has produced ~2,000 lbs of produce donations each year; hosted workshops and other gatherings with campus members and the general public; and spawned a nonprofit (BrightSide Produce) that distributes fruits and vegetables to corner stores in underserved urban neighborhoods.

Opportunities for growth at St Thomas
Connecting activities in the Biology Department to the thriving local food system movement in the Twin Cities could enhance student experiences in the courses listed above and other existing classes.
Providing more opportunities for long-term relationship building with community members could help students build empathy and understanding. Expanding international experiences like BIOL 498 Urban Agriculture and Social Innovation in Cape Town, South Africa would provide students with opportunities to connect to marginalized communities in more authentic and less transactional experiences.
Opportunities also exist for collaborating with other disciplines within the institution to create more impactful projects.

Institutional overview
The primary campus of Tulane is located in uptown New Orleans and occupies 130 acres. Tulane is well known for its investment in community engagement and service learning, and students provide more than 750,000 hours of community service each year.

Opportunities at Tulane
Developing an on-campus community garden to complement Tulane's off-campus urban agriculture would create opportunities for conversations among Tulane community members about fresh produce access and increase opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration (with Economics, Sociology, and other disciplines).

| Institution
Salish Kootenai College-Biology. with some specific environmental health offerings (Virology, One

Institutional overview
Health, Environmental Toxicology). Currently, no courses are specifically linked to urban agriculture or, more generally, to food systems or urbanization.

Biology (Life Sciences) co-curriculum related to urban agriculture
Currently, SKC has a community greenhouse and garden, both part of the SKC extension initiative. The maintenance is done by volunteers, both students and community members, and students with

| Institution
University of San Diego-Biology.

Institutional overview
USD is a comprehensive Catholic university with approximately 9000 students. It is situated in a diverse urban community less than 20 miles from an international border (Mexico). The student body comprises 37% minority and 9% international students. Community service and change-making are institutional priorities.

Biology curriculum related to urban agriculture
The Biology Department at USD emphasizes undergraduate re- Biology co-curriculum related to urban agriculture USD has a community garden established and maintained by student volunteers. Currently, there are no connections between the biology curriculum (or any other curriculum) and the student garden.

Opportunities for growth at USD
Enhancing the framework of sustainable agriculture and healthy food systems to introductory courses would allow biology students to integrate biology, social justice, sustainability, and climate change

Institutional overview
Rollins College is a co-educational liberal arts college just north of Orlando, FL. It has approximately 3300 students. The institution website emphasizes that students will be able to "connect [their] education and … passions to the needs of the world."

Biology curriculum and co-curriculum related to urban agriculture
The Biology Department is exploring potential connections to urban agriculture on campus and in the community. Rollins has a campus garden "the Urban Farm" that grew over the last 5 years from a student endeavor to a collaborative effort among students, faculty, and staff. This garden is now central to a Sustainable Agriculture course offered through Environmental Studies. Biology is collaborating with Rollins' Social Impact Hub, a creative space for human-centered design thinking, to build connections with urban agriculture organizations in Orlando. These organizations include Infinite Zion Farms ( Figure 3), which establishes farms in the Parramore neighborhood of Orlando and elsewhere as an affordable source of organic produce and education to the community, and 4roots, a community alliance seeking to build a sustainable food system.

Opportunities for growth at Rollins
For Rollins, key next steps involve more fully integrating the Urban Farm work into the Biology major, both in plant biology and ecology.

| NE X T S TEPS AND G ENER AL DISCUSS ION
Our review suggests urban agriculture is rarely incorporated into undergraduate biology education, but there are significant opportunities for doing so that could enhance educational offerings. Our review of major programs found that although some biology-related programs have courses focused on food systems and urban challenges, these courses are rare and only one mentions urban agriculture. In a survey of the AASHE STARS database, we found that a potential tool for urban agriculture, campus gardens, is common in U.S. HEIs, but few seem to be used in undergraduate biology courses.  Eyler & Giles, 1999;Gallini & Moely, 2003;. Furthermore, community-engaged learning gives students an opportunity to work with people from diverse backgrounds and gain experience with conflict resolution (Moely et al., 2002;Simons & Cleary, 2006). Finally, community-engaged learning helps students feel connected to their community and take responsibility in addressing social justice issues (Munter, 2002). As a first step in developing a curriculum that cen- for partner organizations. University support for community urban agriculture projects could help expand urban food production and increase urban food system resilience in a time of increasing uncertainty (Yan et al., 2022).
Creating effective, reciprocal relationships between academia and community organizations requires careful planning (Jordaan & Mennega, 2021). Academics engaging in these partnerships should ensure that collaborations benefit rather than burden community partners (Bringle & Hatcher, 2002). Situating community partners as co-educators, for example, gives community members an opportunity to share their expertise with students to enhance their learning (for a more extensive discussion of this important issue, see Jordaan & Mennega, 2021). On-campus community engagement offices can be useful for helping to best navigate these and other potential challenges.
Finally, we recommend university personnel and community partners connect to networks for developing and sharing curricular ideas, creating cross-site experiments, and connecting courses to community engagement. One opportunity is through our newly formed Training Undergraduate Biologists using Urban Agriculture (TUBA) network (www.tuba-rcn.org).
Undergraduate biology education needs to increase engagement for diverse student audiences to reduce attrition and in turn help generate scholars and professionals ready to address the complex challenges associated with rapid global change and growing social inequalities. Urban agriculture as a theme could increase student engagement with biology education by highlighting pressing contemporary challenges, increasing opportunities for local field experiences, and creating new relationships with community organizations. Implementing our recommendations could help urban agriculture become common in undergraduate biology. If done with care, this integration could help students make positive community contributions within the context of required coursework, and help instructors feel a greater sense of accomplishment in this era of change and uncertainty.

ACK N OWLED G M ENTS
This work was made possible by funding from the National Science Foundation's Undergraduate Biology Education program (DEB-1827154 and DEB-2018837).

CO N FLI C T O F I NTE R E S T
The authors have no financial or nonfinancial interests that are directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication.

DATA AVA I L A B I L I T Y S TAT E M E N T
All data presented in this paper has been uploaded to Dryad (https:// doi.org/10.5061/dryad.zw3r2 2898).