Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Valerie Morkevicius, Associate Professor, Political Science, Colgate University

Since the beginning of the Iran war, Pope Leo XIV has frequently called for peace, cautioning that the “delusion of omnipotence” makes military force seem preferable to diplomacy. Although U.S. Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic, criticized some of the pope’s comments, a growing choir of Catholic voices has criticized the conflict by invoking the concept of “just war” – an evolving tradition that has guided Christian thinking about war and peace for 1,500 years.

In March, the archbishop of Washington said the war failed “to meet the just war threshold.” A month later, the prelate leading the U.S. military’s Catholic chaplaincy delivered a stark assessment: The war was not justified. The Vatican’s secretary of state raised similar concerns.

Many faiths have teachings about when war is or is not considered justified, including Judaism, Islam and Hinduism. In the Christian just war tradition, battle is never holy – “God does not bless any conflict,” in Leo’s words – but it is sometimes considered necessary.

That tradition traces its roots to the fifth-century theologian St. Augustine. A millennium later, St. Thomas Aquinas systematized the church’s just war teachings, establishing three basic criteria to assess the justifiable use of force: authority, cause and intention. Over time, three more principles emerged: proportionality, last resort and likelihood of success.

Here’s how they could apply today:

1. Legitimate authority

Historically, the conversation about a war’s justness began by asking whether a responsible sovereign had declared it.

Today, some just war scholars argue only the United Nations holds this authority, since the U.N. charter forbids the use of force against another nation except for self-defense.

In the United States, the boundary between presidential and congressional authority for war is contested. According to the U.S. Constitution, only Congress can declare war, and Congress controls military funding. Yet the Constitution simultaneously grants the president broad authority to command military operations.

The 1973 War Powers Resolution attempted to balance these principles by requiring presidents to seek congressional authorization for any use of force lasting more than 60 days.

2. Just cause

Traditionally, Christian theologians argued that self-defense and righting wrongs could justify war.

Some causes can never be just. For example, the 16th-century scholar Francisco de Vitoria explicitly ruled out “difference of religion” and “enlargement of the empire” as legitimate causes for war.

The Trump administration has offered numerous and shifting rationales for the Iran war – even humanitarian ones, telling Iranians suffering under a brutally oppressive regime that “the hour of your freedom is at hand” – which makes it difficult to assess the justness of its cause.

One of the main explanations U.S. officials have offered, for example, is self-defense. On the war’s first day, Trump declared the objective was to eliminate “imminent threats from the Iranian regime.” International law and the just war tradition uphold states’ right to self-defense.

But the law permits force only when necessary to end an ongoing attack or to avert an imminent one. And Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. attacked because of a planned Israeli strike, casting doubt on the idea of imminent threat: “We knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after (Iran) before (Israel) launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.” Pentagon briefers also told Congress the Iranian threat was not imminent.

In addition to self-defense, Trump claimed a need to prevent future threats – otherwise called preventive war – such as nuclear weapons or longer-range missiles that could reach the United States.

Iran has a history of covert nuclear research, which it claims is for civilian use. Experts debate how long it would take for the country to produce a nuclear weapon. In 2025, the International Atomic Energy Agency declared Iran was not complying with agreements on nuclear nonproliferation. However, international law prohibits preventive war.

Trump has also stated that the war would ensure Iran cannot support “terrorist proxies” abroad. The regime funds and equips Hamas and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

This is a gray area of international law, but providing financial and material aid alone is generally not considered sufficient justification for an attack.

3. Right intent

Just cause alone is insufficient to render a war just.

Aquinas cautioned that even a war declared by a “legitimate authority, and for a just cause” could “be rendered unlawful through a wicked intention.” Augustine saw love of violence, cruelty or power as evil intents. “The common good of the commonwealth” should motivate the decision to go to war, wrote Vitoria, the 16th-century theologian – not the leader’s personal gain or honor.

Assessing right intent is hard, but a government’s conduct and rhetoric can offer clues. Attacks on civilian infrastructure, for example, cast doubt on the Trump administration’s humanitarian claims.

In March, the president told the Financial Times that “my favorite thing is to take the oil in Iran.” In an April post on Truth Social, he wrote, “With a little more time, we can easily OPEN THE HORMUZ STRAIT, TAKE THE OIL, & MAKE A ⁠FORTUNE.” Pursuing economic interests, however, would violate right intent.

4. Proportionality

War is always destructive. But today’s Catholic Catechism, a summary of the church’s teachings, states that the “use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.” In other words, the just war tradition holds that a war is justified only if the harm it causes is proportional to the good it seeks to achieve.

As of April 7, 2026, more than 1,600 Iranian civilians have been killed, including more than 200 children. An estimated 3 million Iranians have been displaced. Schools and health care facilities have been destroyed.

The disruption of oil production and trade translates into higher energy and fertilizer prices, which raise food prices – hitting the world’s poorest the hardest.

Whether the costs of the Iran war are proportionate depends on which of the administration’s stated aims one believes.

5. Last resort

The Catholic Catechism declares war can be legitimate only if “all other means” of putting an end to an aggressor’s harms “have been shown to be impractical or ineffective.”

Arguably, U.S. officials did not give diplomacy sufficient time to work. Days before the war began, some analysts believed that a deal was close. Oman’s foreign minister, who hosted negotiations in February, said “it was a shock but not a surprise” that the U.S. and Israel attacked, after peace “had briefly appeared really possible.” The Guardian reported that the U.K.’s national security adviser, who was also present at those February talks, expressed similar sentiments.

Experts suggest that the U.S. negotiating team’s lack of technical expertise and the tight timeline contributed to failure.

6. Likelihood of success

To be justified, the use of force must be likely to accomplish the war’s aims. Ethicists debate the exact bar but agree that success must be “more likely than a mere ‘hope,’ ‘chance,’ or ‘possibility,’” as international relations scholar Frances V. Harbour put it. Limited goals are more likely to succeed than expansive ones.

The war has degraded Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. But the knowledge needed to build them remains, and without a diplomatic solution, Iran is likely to continue its efforts to develop such technologies.

Similarly, force can disrupt Iran’s proxy networks and raise the costs of maintaining them, but regional diplomacy and cooperation have a better chance of resolving such long-running concerns.

Ultimately, I believe a lack of clarity about the war’s goals diminishes the likelihood of success. Wars require more than military victories; there must be a coherent plan for ending the fighting such that a “better peace” is established.

Valerie Morkevicius does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. ‘Just war’ has guided Catholic thinking on conflict for centuries – including criticism of Iran war – https://theconversation.com/just-war-has-guided-catholic-thinking-on-conflict-for-centuries-including-criticism-of-iran-war-280016

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Thomas Tweed, Professor Emeritus of American Studies and History, University of Notre Dame

On the Fourth of July 1776, the congressional delegates in Philadelphia adopted the Declaration of Independence, then ordered that it be widely “proclaimed.” Couriers carried the printed version by stagecoach and horseback to every colony, where officials posted it and newspapers circulated it.

But the declaration was also meant to be read aloud. Thomas Jefferson’s rough draft has marks signaling where the reader should pause briefly, or take a longer pause. And there were ceremonial public readings: first in Philadelphia and then in town squares, courthouses, churches and taverns up and down the Eastern Seaboard.

Not everyone listening would have agreed with the declaration, and religion was one dividing point. Loyalists who sided with England and the official Church of England dissented on both spiritual and political grounds. Two-thirds of its ministers left for England after the Revolution began. Members of the historic pacifist churches like the Quakers, the Mennonites and the Brethren had tough choices to make after hearing the declaration’s call to arms. Even some who clearly sided with the patriots might have wondered if all the truths the document proclaimed were as “self-evident” as the delegates presumed – for example, that all men are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”

Americans have continued to debate the declaration’s claims. In recent decades, its few references to God have been especially polarizing, as Americans defend starkly contrasting views of the United States. Some say the country is a secular republic founded on 18th-century conceptions of human reason and natural law. Others suggest that it is a Christian nation, chosen by God and founded on biblical principles.

In July 2026, Americans will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. As a historian who has written about the Revolutionary Era, I thought it might help to clarify what the declaration does and doesn’t say about God – and what the readings of 1776 add to our understanding.

Four references to God

The Second Continental Congress appointed a committee of five delegates to write the declaration. Jefferson, the main author, penned the first draft in his rented room in central Philadelphia. John Adams and Benjamin Franklin offered suggestions before they sent the document to Congress for further revision and approval.

The document that delegates adopted listed 27 complaints against King George III and explained the reasons for revolt. It used four terms for God as it made its case.

In its opening paragraph, Jefferson proposed that “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” grant humans equal status and entitle Americans to dissolve “the political bands” with Britain. As historians have shown, Franklin added a phrase to suggest that those rights had been “endowed by their Creator.”

Congress then added two phrases to the final paragraph that portray God as a moral judge and a guiding hand. The delegates mention “the Supreme Judge of the world,” who punishes evil and rewards good – a description that almost all political and religious leaders would have agreed with.

They end by announcing that “with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

Leaving room for disagreement

The reference to “Providence” doesn’t specify how divine influence works, however, leaving room for the founders’ diverging religious interpretations. The more conventionally Christian delegates, like John Witherspoon, believed that God intervenes directly in human history.

Others were less conventionally Christian. Rationalists like Jefferson, for example, believed in a creator but rejected biblical miracles and Jesus’ divinity. They thought that God’s influence can be seen indirectly, in nature’s order and humans’ capacity to discern God-given rights.

Generic theism

As I show in my 2025 book, “Religion in the Lands That Became America,” the declaration became one of the “sacred texts” of U.S. civil religion: the loosely linked beliefs, symbols and rituals that many American leaders use to interpret political life in spiritual terms. But the revered text affirmed a generic theism – belief in a creator god – without mentioning Jesus or Christianity.

Nor did the declaration cite the Bible as a source for government policy or say that America is a Christian nation. Its central purpose was to explain the reasons for separation from Britain, not to detail the new republic’s governing principles.

Governing principles came in 1789 with the U.S. Constitution, which did not mention God. In 1791, states then ratified the First Amendment, with its “establishment” clause rejecting an official state church and its “free exercise” clause protecting personal religious liberty.

What the public readings reveal

Eyewitness accounts offer a few more details about religious language heard at ceremonial public readings of the declaration in 1776.

Some sources show that the declaration was read in churches and discussed by the clergy. Massachusetts, for example, ordered that ministers read it in every congregation. And a soldier’s letter to his father noted that his brigade’s chaplain offered “an excellent prayer” after the declaration was read in New York on July 9, though he gave no other details.

After the second public reading in Philadelphia on July 8 at the State House, now called Independence Hall, eyewitnesses said the crowd gave “three cheers.” And, as the editor of Philadelphia’s German newspaper reported, those cheers were followed by “the cry ‘God bless the Free States of North America.’”

The pattern apparently repeated at other public readings. Abigail Adams wrote to her husband, John, one of the drafters of the declaration, to report that the official reading at Boston’s State House ended with the speaker proclaiming, “God Save our American States.” After a reading for soldiers in Ticonderoga, New York, on July 28, an officer added, “God save the Free, Independent States of America.”

A prominent newspaper circulated a firsthand account from Savannah, Georgia, describing four public readings and a mock “funeral” for the king on Aug. 10. The presiding official ended by suggesting that “America is free and independent, that she is, and will be, with the blessing of the Almighty, great among the nations of the earth.”

In short, attendees at the public readings did hear mentions of God – but apparently didn’t hear the potentially divisive theological language of sermons or creeds.

1776 and 2026

During the 2026 anniversary celebrations, too, the declaration will be read aloud – including in a simultaneous reading on July 8 in Philadelphia and in every U.S. state, commonwealth and territory.

Today, Americans might be even more sharply divided about religion than the colonists of 1776. According to the General Social Survey, 14% of Americans say they don’t believe in God or aren’t sure if there is a God, and 25% have “no religion.” About 11% now embrace a non-Christian faith. When asked if the federal government should proclaim that the U.S. is a Christian nation, Americans are almost evenly divided, a Pew study found, with most evangelicals agreeing and most atheists disagreeing.

Knowing what the declaration actually says, and how its first listeners reacted, might not sway Americans at the extremes. But it provides evidence for less polarizing, more nuanced views about the founding generation’s convictions and compromises as Americans commemorate their nation’s 250th anniversary.

Thomas Tweed does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. What the Declaration of Independence does – and doesn’t – say about God – https://theconversation.com/what-the-declaration-of-independence-does-and-doesnt-say-about-god-271078

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Selena E. Ortiz, Associate professor of Health Policy and Administration and Demography, Penn State

Pittsburgh is widely regarded as a relatively affordable place to live. Overall, housing and living costs remain below national averages for midsize cities in the United States.

Along with low home prices, Pittsburgh offers stable employment rates and close proximity to leading universities and high-quality hospitals.

However, data from a March 2026 survey shows that a single adult needs to earn about $95,000 to live comfortably in Pittsburgh. This is well above the city’s median household income of $67,000. A family of four needs nearly $239,000.

My peer‑reviewed work examines how housing affordability affects a community’s health. It also documents how well policy holds up over time in terms of affordable housing efforts.

Inclusionary zoning explained

Inclusionary zoning requires developers to reserve a portion of new housing units for lower-income residents at below-market rents. A city might require, for example, that a new residential complex reserve or set aside 10% of units for households that earn 80% or less of the area median income.

Also referred to as a “mandatory set-aside,” inclusionary zoning is often done in exchange for developer incentives, such as density bonuses, which allow developers to build additional units. Other incentives could be expedited permitting or relaxed parking minimums, allowing developers to build fewer parking spaces than normally required.

In 2025, Pittsburgh adopted the Affordable Housing Bonus Program, a largely voluntary, incentive-based policy that applies inclusionary zoning requirements only within designated overlay districts. An overlay district is an extra layer of rules that apply to a specific area on top of the neighborhood’s regular zoning rules – such as a special zone within a zone.

The goal is to encourage developers to include a percentage of affordable units within specific geographic areas, such as Lawrenceville, Bloomfield, Polish Hill and parts of Oakland. The Affordable Housing Bonus Program emerged after legal challenges and public opposition derailed inclusionary zoning citywide.

The Affordable Housing Bonus Program is now being tested by a University of Pittsburgh student housing project called The Caroline at University Commons. University Commons is situated in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood, an inclusionary zoning overlay district. However, the developer, Walnut Capital, is seeking to exempt the project from inclusionary zoning overlay requirements altogether. This would reduce the number of affordable units set aside from 16 to 0. Walnut Capital believes it’s exempt from inclusionary zoning because it meets all other bonus requirements.

Short on homes, split on solutions

The fragility of the Affordable Housing Bonus Program matters not only for the neighborhoods that it affects but for what it reveals about Pittsburgh’s housing affordability.

Pittsburgh faces a persistent shortage of affordable housing. This is especially true for extremely low-income residents, or those who earn less than 30% of an area’s median income. That’s roughly one-quarter of all Pittsburgh residents.

Local estimates from The Pittsburgh Foundation show a deficit of more than 11,000 affordable units for residents at the lowest income levels. This shortage leaves many of these renters cost-burdened and vulnerable to eviction.

The debate about inclusionary zoning in Pittsburgh is heated. Among advocates, community organizations and some policymakers, it’s seen as an effective policy lever. They say it keeps neighborhoods affordable and diverse while giving residents a voice in how their neighborhoods change.

Conversely, developers and some policymakers argue that inclusionary zoning can reduce new construction and lead to higher rents overall. They also warn it can undermine equity goals by slowing housing production or concentrating affordable units in just a few areas.

Why Pittsburgh struggles to provide affordable housing

Pittsburgh’s housing challenges stem from a combination of rising construction and administrative costs; dependency on fragmented financing structures; housing market shifts and demographic change; a constrained tax base and a complex zoning and permitting system.

These supply-side challenges are compounded by demand-side barriers. In 2025, Pittsburgh added “housing status” as a protected class to prevent discrimination against the unhoused population, those with disabilities, and families fleeing domestic violence. But widespread landlord refusal of Section 8 vouchers shows how affordability policies can fall apart without real enforcement. The Affordable Housing Bonus Program similarly faces compliance problems.

Pittsburgh’s housing crisis is a health crisis

Pittsburgh’s uncertain housing affordability policies have far-reaching implications for public health, equity and neighborhood stability.

Research shows 2 in 5 Pittsburgh renters spend more than 30% of their income on housing, and 1 in 4 spend over half. This increases eviction risk and housing instability, with cascading health effects, such as hypertension, cardiovascular disease, anxiety and depression.

Housing burdens can also force people to make trade-offs between housing and health care, medications, nutritious food or transportation.

Displacement and aging, poorly maintained housing stock compound these problems, making Pittsburgh’s affordable housing crisis a public health crisis as much as a housing one.

Pittsburgh’s path forward

No single policy can resolve Pittsburgh’s housing challenges. But the city has taken meaningful steps.

Since the city budget was approved in March 2026, Pittsburgh has streamlined its permitting processes, increased local funding commitments for community investments and strengthened support for nonprofit developers and community organizations.

Treating housing affordability as a serious policy priority will require more innovation, not only in regulation and financing, but in how policies are evaluated, adapted and sustained over time.

Selena E. Ortiz receives funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

– ref. ‘Affordable’ Pittsburgh doesn’t have enough affordable housing – here’s why – https://theconversation.com/affordable-pittsburgh-doesnt-have-enough-affordable-housing-heres-why-280113

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Tanya D. Marsh, Professor of Law, Wake Forest University

Nearly two-thirds of Americans now opt for cremation – a figure that has been steadily increasing over five decades.

On the surface, that proportion tells a simple story: The nation has embraced cremation, while its preference for casket burials has fallen off.

But as a scholar of funeral and cemetery law, I decided to dig deeper into this trend.

I wanted to know whether people were embracing cremation because they actually preferred it, or if they were rejecting casket burial for one reason or another. I also explored whether consumers were open to new options in death care, like water cremation and human composting.

You’re dead – what’s next?

With funding from the Cremation Association of North America and the Order of the Good Death, a nonprofit organization that promotes more informed and less fear-driven conversations about death and dying, I launched the first
academic survey on consumer preferences in death care in 2024.

The survey presented over 1,500 American adults in a nationally representative sample with the definitions of six legal methods of disposition in a random order. It asked respondents whether they had “heard” of that method and whether they would “consider” that method. The six methods were cremation, casket burial, green burial, donation to science, water cremation and human composting.

At the end of the survey, respondents were asked to rank the six methods of disposition in terms of preference.

While cremation, casket burial and donation to science are nearly universally available in the U.S., the other three methods of disposition are not.

Green burial – defined as the burial of human remains without embalming, contained only in a biodegradable shroud or casket – is legal in all 50 states and Washington, but is only offered by a small share of cemeteries.

Water cremation, also known as alkaline hydrolysis, is a process in which human remains are placed in a pressurized chamber filled with water and chemicals and eventually reduced to powder. Water cremation is legal in 28 states but not offered by many funeral homes.

Human composting, also known as natural organic reduction, is a process in which human remains are placed in a container filled with natural materials and microorganisms that break the body down to soil. It is legal in 14 states and currently commercially available in only three.

The cremation paradox

A central tension emerged in the survey results: While 72.6% of respondents said they would consider cremation, only 33.4% ranked it as their actual first choice. Casket burial edged it out at 35.9% as the top-ranked preference. Yet the real-world cremation rate – 62% – is nearly double the stated first-choice rate.

So what’s going on?

The survey didn’t ask respondents to explain their reasoning, and it intentionally left out costs because they vary dramatically by region. But the numbers strongly imply that many Americans are choosing cremation not because it is their top preference, but because their actual first choice is either unavailable or too expensive.

For example, 40.4% of respondents indicated that they would consider human composting, and 5.9% ranked it as their first choice. But currently fewer than 1,000 bodies are composted in the United States each year.

That is likely because the vast majority of funeral homes do not offer the service, and consumers may have a difficult time locating the handful of providers. Human composting is also more expensive than cremation. The average cost for a direct cremation is approximately US$2,000, while human composting typically costs $5,000 to $7,000. Given these barriers, it’s certainly possible that many consumers are simply pivoting to their second choice: cremation.

The pattern holds across every region of the country, where actual casket burial rates closely match stated first-choice rates, while cremation rates far exceed them. For example, in the South, the burial rate closely tracked the 45.7% who ranked it as their first preference. But the cremation rate was 53.5%, nearly double the 27.3% who ranked it first.

Baby boomers – the generation currently at the forefront of end-of-life planning – are the most willing to consider cremation at 78.8% and the least willing to consider casket burial at just 54.8%. But are they eagerly choosing cremation or simply defaulting to it due to logistical or financial constraints?

Neo-traditional Gen Zs?

At the same time, the data suggests that the youngest adults in the survey are moving in the opposite direction.

A striking 51.7% of Gen Z respondents ranked casket burial as their first choice, compared with just 27.1% of baby boomers. Only 55.9% of Gen Z was even willing to consider cremation – less than today’s actual cremation rate.

It’s tempting to connect this to widely reported trends among Gen Z toward social conservatism, which includes the generation’s embrace of religions with burial traditions.

The survey does show that conservative respondents strongly preferred casket burial over cremation – 53.1% to 28.4% – and that Roman Catholic or Protestant respondents were significantly more likely to favor casket burial. If Gen Z is trending in those directions, a preference for traditional burial would make sense.

But Gen Z may not understand what casket burial involves.

Nearly half who ranked it first also said they would not consider embalming, even though embalming is typically part of the process. Some young respondents may be confusing casket burial with green burial, or may not grasp the financial realities of their stated preference. A standard viewing followed by a casket burial in the United States generally costs at least $10,000, depending on the cost of the burial plot.

Members of Gen Z, who are roughly between 15 and 30 years old, may also feel a stronger connection to their childhood homes. Other studies have found a correlation between geographic mobility and burial preference, perhaps because burial connects a person to a place in perpetuity.

Only longitudinal data, collected year after year, will reveal whether this data indicates a sticky generational shift or an age effect that fades.

Going green

Although Americans have, for a long time, largely limited themselves to two options, burial or cremation, the survey revealed remarkable openness to new methods.

Only 47.5% of respondents had even heard of a green burial. Yet after reading a brief definition, 56.4% said they would consider it. One-third ranked it as their first or second choice.

Water cremation showed an even more dramatic shift: Only 24% had heard of it, but 39.3% were willing to consider it after learning about it.

These numbers suggest significant unmet demand. Human composting was the first choice of nearly 6% of respondents – a striking figure for a method that has existed for only six years and is available in just a few states.

The big takeaway is that the cremation rate may be artificially inflated because of limitations on awareness, availability and legal access to greener alternatives.

The future of American death care probably isn’t a march toward more cremation. Instead, it’ll probably be a bumpy road of unmet wants, generational surprises and alternatives that need a little more time to get on people’s radars.

Tanya D. Marsh is a board member for Recompose, a funeral home in Washington state that exclusively offers natural organic reduction and a board member for the North Carolina Funeral Consumers Alliance. Funding for the Wake Forest Law Survey on Consumer Preferences in Death Care was provided by the Cremation Association of North America and the Order of the Good Death.

– ref. Boom in cremation hides surprising truths about what Americans really want when they die – https://theconversation.com/boom-in-cremation-hides-surprising-truths-about-what-americans-really-want-when-they-die-280340

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Mavra Javed, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Food Science and Human Nutrition, Michigan State University

You may have seen black garlic appear more frequently in grocery stores, restaurants and online recipes over the past few years. Many chefs and food writers describe it as a unique and deeply flavored ingredient. So what is black garlic, and how is it made?

I noticed a growing curiosity about black garlic firsthand while presenting my food science research at a showcase at Michigan State University. Several people asked me basic questions about black garlic, like how it is made and what sets it apart from regular garlic. The ingredient’s growing popularity reflects a broader interest in foods that offer both distinctive flavor and potential health benefits.

Black garlic is not an ancient traditional food, but a recent innovation developed in Japan in the late 20th century. The process of making black garlic is often attributed to Japanese scientist Hamasuke Hamano, who spent a decade refining a method to make garlic more palatable before securing a patent in 2004.

How is black garlic made?

Black garlic is not a different type of garlic. It is made from regular garlic bulbs that have been kept under warm, humid conditions typically in specialized chambers that maintain exact heat and humidity levels for several weeks to months.

Unlike traditional fermentation, this process does not use added microorganisms. Instead, the transformation happens through a combination of heat and moisture. As the garlic is slowly heated under controlled conditions, natural chemical reactions known as Maillard reactions take place within the cloves. These reactions give black garlic its dark color and its slightly sweet, rich flavor.

Producers may use different processing times, storage temperatures and packaging materials, all of which can make the final product vary in taste and quality. Because of this variation, black garlic often doesn’t taste the same across products.

Texture and taste of black garlic

While raw garlic has a sharp, pungent taste, black garlic typically has a milder, slightly sweet taste. The underlying chemistry is complex, but the basic idea is straightforward: Heat and humidity transform both the taste and structure of garlic. These shifts in flavor happen because the compound responsible for garlic’s strong taste breaks down during the heating process. At the same time, heat-driven reactions form new compounds that contribute to a smoother and more complex flavor.

The texture also changes significantly. Instead of being firm and crisp, black garlic becomes soft and almost spreadable.

The heat and humidity break down the structure of garlic by softening its cell walls and altering its sugars and proteins. The reactions also reduce allicin: the compound responsible for garlic’s sharp and pungent flavor. At the same time, Maillard reactions between sugars and amino acids – which make up proteins – create new compounds, including brown pigments called melanoidins and a range of flavor compounds.

What is known about black garlic’s health effects?

Some studies suggest that black garlic may have higher antioxidant activity than raw garlic. Antioxidants are compounds that help neutralize unstable molecules in the body, which can damage cells over time.

Researchers have explored the effects of black garlic on metabolic and cardiovascular health, including blood sugar and cholesterol levels. Some studies report modest improvements in these markers, although the results are not always consistent.

Previous studies have suggested that compounds in black garlic may help reduce inflammation, fight harmful bacteria and even show some potential in slowing the growth of cancer cells.

These findings are promising, but they should be interpreted carefully, especially because most studies have been conducted in laboratory settings or animal models, rather than on people.

What are scientists still figuring out?

Despite growing interest, researchers still have important gaps in their understanding of black garlic. Without well-designed human trials, it is difficult to draw firm conclusions about its health effects.

Another challenge lies in the lack of standardized production methods. Because black garlic production methods vary, its composition can vary. It’s much harder for researchers to compare results across studies and identify consistent benefits. Scientists will need to conduct more research before they can make any promises about black garlic’s benefits – or lack thereof.

Black garlic is proof that a few simple tweaks in how you prepare a food can rewrite its story entirely. For now, you can appreciate black garlic as an interesting addition to your kitchen, while researchers continue to explore what it can and cannot do for your health.

Mavra Javed does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. What is black garlic? How heat and humidity turn a pungent ingredient mild and slightly sweet – https://theconversation.com/what-is-black-garlic-how-heat-and-humidity-turn-a-pungent-ingredient-mild-and-slightly-sweet-280970

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Beth Gazley, Professor of Nonprofit Management and Policy, Indiana University

The Southern Poverty Law Center was indicted on April 21, 2026, on federal fraud charges. The Justice Department alleges that the civil rights group known as the SPLC improperly raised millions of dollars to secretly pay leaders of the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist and extremist groups for inside information.

The Justice Department alleges that the SPLC, based in Montgomery, Alabama, and founded in 1971, defrauded its donors by making “materially false representations and omissions about what the donated funds would be used for.”

Following the indictment, the SPLC said it “will vigorously defend ourselves, our staff, and our work” against what it described as false allegations.

The Conversation U.S. asked Beth Gazley, an Indiana University scholar of nonprofits and civil society, to explain the significance of this indictment and to put it into the broader context of the Trump administration’s actions regarding some nonprofits.

Are there any precedents for this case?

Tax-exempt nonprofits must follow the law like other institutions. Although nonprofits are sometimes charged with and convicted of fraud, nonprofit fraud cases are relatively rare.

One study found 219 internally detected fraud cases from 2008-2011, out of approximately 1.5 million registered U.S. nonprofits. Only 20 of those cases involved defrauding donors.

The American Society of Fraud Examiners found similarly low numbers of nonprofit fraud cases.

A notable example during the COVID-19 pandemic involved the founders of a Minnesota nonprofit, Feeding Our Future, that set up fake mobile meal distribution sites and pocketed US$250 million of the U.S. Department of Agriculture money that funded them.

It’s unusual, to be clear, for federal authorities to take this kind of action when federal funding is not involved, and the SPLC does not accept government grants. That’s because the attorney general for the relevant state normally handles litigation against charities suspected of wrongdoing.

And it’s atypical for federal or state authorities to step in on behalf of a nonprofit’s donors without citing any complaints from specific donors.

The SPLC paid its informants more than $3 million through a program that it has since shut down. Although federal prosecutors allege that extremists used some of this money to carry out crimes, they cited no specific examples.

Likewise, this indictment names no donors. But there are precedents for this kind of legal action.

I see parallels between this case and a lawsuit the attorney general of Illinois filed against a for-profit telemarketing firm for the allegedly false representations it made to donors. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 2003 that a regulatory agency can sue a charity for fraud when the state can prove that its fundraisers had been deliberately deceptive.

Also, in 2025, members of the Trump administration accused several progressive groups, including the SPLC – without providing any evidence – of encouraging violence against right-wing public figures, such as Charlie Kirk, the conservative leader who was killed while leading an event on a college campus.

How does donor accountability normally work?

Large donors occasionally sign legal agreements with charities that make their gifts contingent on a specific project. For example, a donor might give a university $30 million to ensure that a building will be constructed and emblazoned with their name.

If that building isn’t built or the gift is diverted for other purposes, the donor can sue to get their money back under contract law.

But most donors are making unrestricted gifts supporting the broader mission, leaving the use of those funds at the discretion of the nonprofit that received them. It falls to the nonprofit’s board of directors to monitor how donations are used.

Boards are a legal requirement because they act as fiduciaries of the organization’s tax-exempt mission – meaning that they are responsible for ensuring donations support the mission and follow public law.

Did the SPLC deceive its donors by paying informants?

Normally, a donor might file a complaint against a charity they’ve funded for spending their donations in a manner that is at odds with its mission.

Or, regulators could complain that some donations were not used for tax-exempt purposes.

The Justice Department is focusing on how the SPLC secretly paid informants working inside the Ku Klux Klan and other organizations the SPLC viewed as white supremacy and hate groups.

Because these informants continued to engage in extremist activity while undercover, the indictment claims the SPLC effectively supported the hate groups’ operations, violating the part of its mission dedicating it to “dismantle white supremacy.”

Bryan Fair, the SPLC’s interim CEO, responded to the indictment by arguing that its undercover activities, aided by paid informants, helped achieve some of the group’s goals. On the SPLC website, the group says it “exposes hate and anti-democracy extremism, and counters disinformation and conspiracy theories with research and community resources.”

Do any other organizations do undercover work?

In its response, the SPLC has also observed that it shared much of the information gained from inside informants with law enforcement, including the FBI.

In October 2025, the FBI ended its relationship with the SPLC. It said at the time that monitoring extremist organizations violated those organizations’ free-speech rights.

Secret surveillance conducted by nonprofits often stirs up controversies, but it is not illegal unless some other law is violated, such as a privacy right.

The conservative groups Project Veritas and the Center for Medical Progress have both used their donors’ money for undercover surveillance.

What could ultimately be at stake?

The SPLC’s indictment is the latest in a series of attacks by the Trump administration against nonprofits that support Palestinian rights, civil rights and other progressive causes.

The Trump White House and conservative lawmakers more broadly have tried to delegitimize and defund progressive organizations by designating them as “domestic terror groups. To date, that effort has failed.

In November 2024, the House passed a nonprofit-terrorism measure that subsequently failed in the Senate. At the time, Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, observed that it is already a ”felony crime to provide material support to terrorist groups.“

Similar bills were reintroduced in both chambers of Congress in December 2025.

To win a conviction of the SPLC in court, the Justice Department would have to prove that the nonprofit deliberately deceived donors and knew that the money it paid its extremist informants would support criminal activity.

This was the approach Georgia’s government used against environmental activists in 2022. But Georgia indicted individual activists rather than the organization they were affiliated with. Those cases are still pending.

The specific activities these SPLC informants pursued while undercover would separately be indictable if they were criminal activities. But of the eight unnamed individuals in the indictment, the only activities the Justice Department alleges the SPLC funded are “racist postings” and “fundraising.”

And both of those activities are constitutionally protected under the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech rights.

Beth Gazley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Trump administration’s indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center breaks with norms – and may lack evidence of criminal wrongdoing – https://theconversation.com/trump-administrations-indictment-of-the-southern-poverty-law-center-breaks-with-norms-and-may-lack-evidence-of-criminal-wrongdoing-281310

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Richard B. (Ricky) Rood, Professor Emeritus of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering, University of Michigan

Michigan and parts of Wisconsin are in the midst of a historic flooding event in spring 2026. Days of heavy rainfall on top of snow have sent lakes and rivers over their banks and threatened several dams in both states, forcing people to evacuate homes downstream.

By April 20, 2026, nearly half of Michigan’s counties were under a state of emergency. In Cheboygan, Michigan, large pumps were brought in to lower pressure on a century-old dam in the city.

The region’s aging water infrastructure was never designed for the volume of water it is facing. That’s a troubling sign for the future, with flooding becoming more common as global temperatures rise.

In many areas, the damage has been exacerbated by a culture of building homes and cabins on the shores of inland lakes and along riverine lakes behind small, often privately owned dams. Many of these dams were built over 100 years ago, with some long forgotten.

I am a professor emeritus of meteorology at the University of Michigan whose work focuses on helping communities adapt to climate change. The warming climate is worsening the flood risk, and disasters like the one Michigan is experiencing are setting higher benchmarks for safety as communities plan future infrastructure.

Where is all the water coming from?

For much of Michigan and Wisconsin, as well as northern Illinois, 2026 has been the wettest March and April on record.

In March, much of that precipitation fell as snow, including in an enormous blizzard that brought 3 feet of snow to parts of Michigan. In mid-April, persistent rains began. The rain, on top of all that snow, sent floodwaters running into rivers, streets and homes. The water carries large amounts of ice that damages shores, infrastructure and homes.

The moisture for much of these storms has been funneled northward from the warm Gulf of Mexico, thanks in part to a high pressure system sitting over the southeastern U.S.

The problem of warming winters

The kind of flooding Michigan and Wisconsin are experiencing in 2026 is what forecasters expect to see more of as global temperatures rise.

Winters have been warming faster than other seasons across the U.S. In Michigan and Wisconsin, winter months used to be reliably below freezing, but that’s changing. In the Cheboygan area, near the tip of Lower Michigan, March temperatures used to be below freezing on all but a few days. By the 1991-2020 period, the region averaged 10 days above or close to the freezing point – about twice as many as the 1951-1980 period.

The air coming in from the south is also warmer than in the past. Nationally, 2026 was the warmest March on record in 132 years of record-keeping in the contiguous U.S., with an average temperature more than 9 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius) higher than the 30-year average. So, in addition to snowmelt starting earlier, melting is happening faster.

Michigan’s average wintertime temperature rose by more than 4 F (2.3 C) from 1951 to 2023. Though winter 2026 in Michigan was colder than the 1991-2020 average, the Gulf of Mexico, where the moisture originated, was warmer than average, accelerating the snowmelt.

How warming leads to downpours and flooding

A few aspects of a warming climate can lead to flooding.

First, temperatures are increasing. In higher temperatures, moisture evaporates faster from the ground, plants and surface water. That moisture, once in the atmosphere, eventually falls again as precipitation. However, for each degree Celsius that temperatures increase, the atmosphere can hold about 7% more moisture, resulting in more heavy downpours.

A warmer winter also means more melting snow and more rain-on-snow events that can quickly increase the amount of runoff into rivers.

The Great Lakes region and much of the Northeast already experience more precipitation than in the past. Winters with more persistent wetness – not just snow but also rain – prime the region for floods. With continued warming in the coming decades, 2026 might be among the least disruptive in the future.

Data shows that a scenario of persistent wetness, changes in winter and seasonal runoff is part of the future for Michigan and the other states and Canadian provinces along the Great Lakes Basin, as well as New England.

Fixing dams for the future

All of this means communities across the region will have to pay closer attention to the growing risks facing their vital infrastructure – particularly dams.

Even prior to the 2026 floods, Michigan had a well-documented problem with its aging inventory of 2,600 dams. In May 2020, an intense storm system that stalled over the region brought so much rain that the Edenville and Sanford dams both failed near Midland, Michigan, forcing 10,000 people to evacuate and causing an estimated US$200 million in damage.

After that disaster, a state task force issued recommendations for fixing the state’s water control infrastructure to meet the growing risks. But a member of the task force told The Detroit News in April 2026 that little had been done to address those recommendations.

Because warming will continue for the coming decades, the 2026 flooding should be considered at the lower end of capacity for stormwater infrastructure and dams. Rather than relying on the statistics that described floods in the past, planners will have to anticipate the floods of the future.

Michigan is often touted as a climate haven because it is relatively cool and has plenty of water. The state is not, however, immune to the amped-up weather of a warming climate. Environmental security in the future requires improved and more adaptive infrastructure.

Richard B. (Ricky) Rood receives funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

– ref. Heavy rain on snow is testing aging dams across Michigan and Wisconsin – this is the future in a warming world – https://theconversation.com/heavy-rain-on-snow-is-testing-aging-dams-across-michigan-and-wisconsin-this-is-the-future-in-a-warming-world-281221

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Zachary Handlos, Atmospheric Science Educator, Georgia Institute of Technology

Large parts of the southeastern U.S. are in the midst of an exceptional drought, and it is fueling dozens of wildfires in Florida and Georgia.

One of those wildfires, in southeastern Georgia’s Brantley County, had destroyed more than 50 homes by April 23, and state officials said about 1,000 other homes were at risk. Another fire near the Georgia-Florida border had burned almost 30,000 acres and was only about 10% contained. The smoke from the blazes triggered air quality alerts in Atlanta, in the north-central part of the state.

So why is a region of the U.S. more often known for thunderstorms and humidity in spring seeing so many wildfires?

I teach meteorology at the Georgia Institute of Technology, including how weather patterns can lead to conditions conducive to wildfires. Here’s what’s happening to drive these conditions:

Key ingredients for a wildfire

Wildfires need a few key ingredients to spread: low relative humidity, dry fuels and strong winds.

Much of the Southeast has been in a drought since July 2025. From mid-March to mid-April 2026, the region saw less than a quarter of its normal precipitation for that time of year.

As a result, the U.S. Drought Monitor classified most of this region in “extreme” or “exceptional” drought by mid-April.

Part of the reason for the lack of rainfall has been a persistent high-pressure system over the Southeast.

High-pressure systems are areas where air aloft sinks toward the surface, preventing clouds and precipitation from forming. The Southeast high-pressure system resulted from the presence of a “ridge” in the jet stream, a northward bend in this fast current of air several miles above Earth’s surface.

Another consequence of this high pressure has been the presence of generally southeast winds, which have transported warm and fairly dry air into the area.

The relative humidity – a measure of the amount of moisture in the air relative to the maximum amount the air can contain at its actual air temperature – has also been very low due to warmer-than-usual temperatures and lower-than-usual moisture.

As a result of these conditions, trees, grass and leaves dry out and can quickly become fuel for wildfires. That kind of dry fuel is widespread throughout rural areas of Georgia and north Florida.

Once a fire starts, whether from lightning, power lines or other human sources, strong winds can spread it rapidly in these conditions.

What’s ahead for the region?

As global temperatures rise, the frequency of drought conditions in the Southeast will increase. This, in combination with less soil moisture content in the summer, could be conducive for increased wildfire activity.

Wildfires do eventually burn out. It takes a combination of help from the atmosphere, with moisture to douse them, and firefighters clearing away dry fuel to stop their spread.

Georgia and Florida may get a reprieve soon from the weather, as multiple low-pressure systems are forecast for the region in late April and early May that could bring rainfall. In the meantime, more than half of Georgia’s counties are under a state of emergency, as several agencies battle the flames to protect homes with helicopters in the air and firefighters on the ground.

Dr. Zachary Handlos receives funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation. He is affiliated with the Georgia Institute of Technology (i.e., “Georgia Tech”) School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences (EAS) and is the Director of their Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (AOS) undergraduate degree program. He is also currently the chair of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) Board on Higher Education (BHE).

– ref. Why the Southeast is burning – extreme drought is only part of the reason – https://theconversation.com/why-the-southeast-is-burning-extreme-drought-is-only-part-of-the-reason-281392

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Wayne Unger, Associate Professor of Law, Quinnipiac University

The recent publication of confidential Supreme Court memoranda by The New York Times has brought to light a pivotal moment in the court’s history. “The birth of the Supreme Court’s shadow docket has long been a mystery,” wrote reporters Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak. “Until now.”

Originally coined by legal scholar William Baude, the term “shadow docket” refers to the Supreme Court’s emergency docket, which, as Baude wrote, includes “a range of orders and summary decisions that defy its normal procedural regularity.”

That’s law professor-speak for cases that are given abbreviated consideration and accelerated review by the justices, all out of public view – what The New York Times story referred to as the court “sprinting.” These cases aren’t included in the annual list of cases the justices have chosen to consider and that are presented by attorneys in public sessions, called “oral argument,” at the court.

During the second Trump administration, such shadow docket cases have proliferated as President Donald Trump has continued to push boundaries, challenge precedents and expand executive power. These cases have typically involved a request by the presidential administration “to suspend lower court orders” that temporarily block “an administration policy from taking effect,” according to liberal legal advocacy group the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

The lack of transparency in considering and ruling on the shadow docket, combined with the weight of the issues presented to the court via that docket, mean that the practice has come under strong criticism by many court watchers. Here’s how the process works and what you need to know to evaluate it.

The merits docket

The emergency docket is different from the court’s merits docket, which is the customary path for cases to reach the Supreme Court.

Ordinarily, in federal courts, a case begins in a federal district court. An appeal of the decision in the case is made to a federal appeals court. If a party in the case wants to appeal further, they can aim for U.S. Supreme Court review. That requires filing a “petition for writ of certiorari” to the court.

The Supreme Court does not take all the cases for which it has been petitioned. The court holds complete discretion to choose which cases to consider each term and always rejects the vast majority of petitions that it receives. By custom, the court agrees to consider a case if at least four justices vote to grant the writ of certiorari.

For the cases that the court agrees to consider, the parties to that case file briefs – written legal arguments – with the Supreme Court. Third parties can also file briefs with the court to assert their own arguments; these are known as “friend of the court” or amicus curiae briefs.

The justices then read those briefs and hear oral arguments in the case in a public session, during which they can question attorneys for both sides, before they meet and confer. At the end of this conference, the justices vote on the outcome in the case before assigning an author to draft the opinions.

The merits docket – the ordinary process – is methodical. It promotes deliberation and reasoned decision-making resulting in lengthy opinions that explain the justices’ rationale and provide guidance for lower courts in future cases.

The emergency docket

On the other hand, the emergency docket is a process whereby the court makes quick decisions without full briefing and deliberation, and it produces orders and rulings that almost always present little to no explanation.

As Baude wrote, “Many of the orders lack the transparency that we have come to appreciate in its merits cases.”

Most of the court’s rulings and orders in cases on the emergency docket go without explanation. On occasion, however, the court produces short opinions that provide some explanation in emergency docket cases, albeit these are often dissents from the justices who disagree with the ruling.

Transparency is important, especially for the Supreme Court, because it builds trust and legitimacy. According to Gallup, as of September 2025, 42% of respondents approve, 52% disapprove and 6% have no opinion of the Supreme Court. A 2025 Pew Research Center poll found that 48% of Americans have a favorable view of the court, down from 70% five years earlier.

As a constitutional law scholar, I’ve written elsewhere that the low approval might be attributable to the court’s undisciplined overruling of landmark cases regarding individual rights, such as the abortion rights case Roe v. Wade. In my view, it is reasonable to conclude that the court’s lack of transparency, specifically with its growing emergency docket, contributes to distrust in the court.

As the late Justice Sandra Day O’Connor stated, “The Court’s power lies … in its legitimacy, a product of substance and perception that shows itself in the people’s acceptance of the Judiciary as fit to determine what the Nation’s law means and to declare what it demands.”

Conversely, a lack of transparency breeds distrust and erodes institutional legitimacy.

Unprecedented action

The 2016 case at the center of the memoranda published by The New York Times –West Virginia v. EPA – concerned environmental regulation. As the justices’ memoranda illustrate, West Virginia, North Dakota and several energy companies sued the Obama administration over its Clean Power Plan and sought to block the new, transformative regulation from going into effect.

The Clean Power Plan would have required states and energy companies to shift electricity production from higher-emitting to lower-emitting production methods to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

After losing at the trial court, the states and energy companies filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court asking the justices to pause the Obama regulation from going into effect while the parties litigated the case in the lower courts.

This was a highly unusual request because, as Taraleigh Davis at SCOTUSblog confirms, “nobody had previously asked the court to halt such a major executive regulatory action before any appellate court had ruled on it.”

The court granted the unprecedented stay on Feb. 9, 2016, without any explanation as to why it temporarily blocked the Clean Power Plan. It eventually struck down the plan on June 22, 2022.

Defenders of the emergency docket frequently claim that the court’s conduct is permissible because its orders are temporary. In West Virginia v. EPA, the court temporarily blocked the Clean Power Plan from going into effect until it eventually struck it down after hearing the case on its merits docket.

What is overlooked, however, is that even temporary orders from the court can have lasting implications that are difficult, and in some cases impossible, to undo.

Damage done

Consider the example of one of Trump’s immigration actions.

The administration seeks to terminate the temporary protected status for Haitian nationals, which had shielded them from deportation. But a federal district court temporarily blocked the president from doing so as the litigation continued.

The administration then filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court – still pending as of this writing – asking the court to overrule the district court. If granted, the court effectively would allow the administration to revoke TPS for Haitian nationals.

As an amicus brief in the case articulated, if TPS is revoked, Haitians “will be forced to face the untenable options of leaving behind their citizen children and/or partners, bringing family members with them to a country submerged in crisis, violence, and food insecurity, or staying in the U.S. without any legal status or work authorization and facing the constant threat of deportation.”

In other words, if the Supreme Court overrules the district court in this case on its emergency docket, then the Trump administration could deport the Haitian nationals even as their cases challenging the revocation of their TPS continue.

If the Haitian nationals ultimately prevail, reversing their deportation would be exceptionally difficult to do.

Wayne Unger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Supreme Court’s ‘shadow docket’ brings hasty decisions with long-lasting implications, outside of its usual careful deliberation – https://theconversation.com/supreme-courts-shadow-docket-brings-hasty-decisions-with-long-lasting-implications-outside-of-its-usual-careful-deliberation-281212

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Shelley Mitchell, Senior Extension Specialist in Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Oklahoma State University

I used to teach high school science in Oklahoma, and one day I brought in a stalk from a cotton plant with bolls of cotton still attached. Students asked me why I glued cotton balls to a stick.

My students and I lived in a rural town surrounded by pastures of cattle and goats and fields of wheat, soybeans and cotton. I was amazed to learn how little my students understood agriculture. After a few related incidents, I started incorporating agriculture into my science classes.

When the United States was formed, about 80% of the population lived and worked on farms. Within a century the number had fallen to 40%. Today, less than 2% of the population lives on farms.

When most Americans lived on farms, agriculture was part of daily life. Most kids did farm chores, and planting and harvest seasons dictated the schedule of the school year. Today, most Americans are several generations removed from agriculture, and agriculture is seen as a career instead of a part of daily life.

As an agricultural extension specialist focused on horticulture, I’ve found that gardens can be an excellent teaching tool. By integrating gardens into schools, students can grow up learning about agriculture and the food systems that shape their daily lives.

Many researchers have cataloged the benefits of school gardens, and they go far beyond seeing how food grows.

Gardening for education

As people increasingly left the farms in the early 1900s and became disengaged from agriculture, a gap began to emerge between the public’s perception of farming and the nuts and bolts of the practice. In 1981, the U.S. Department of Agriculture created a task force to address agriculture illiteracy. This task force resulted in the formation of the National Agriculture in the Classroom program, which provides educators with lessons and tools to improve students’ understanding of raising farm animals and crops, including gardening.

Gardening also has benefits beyond agricultural literacy. For very young children, gardening increases hand-eye coordination, which is linked to success in handwriting, math and reading. Gardening, instead of sitting in a classroom, increases students’ physical activity during the school day.

During a typical indoor class, children sit about 84% of the time. While in the garden, children sit only about 15% of the time.

Getting outside and doing hands-on learning is more engaging than sitting in a classroom passively learning by lecture, because active learning engages more regions of the brain, resulting in better understanding and retention of concepts. Active learning also allows students to follow their own curiosity, which motivates them to learn and remember concepts.

A study showed that allowing more individual freedom in gardens led to an increase in positive attitudes toward school. Children involved in school gardening are also more active outside of school hours.

While working in a garden, students are involved with science and nature, and that involvement leads to more science literacy and positive attitudes toward science and the environment.

Gardening is, in essence, a science experiment with variables, such as water, temperature and sun exposure. Each variable has an effect on the success of the garden. Manipulating the variables and seeing the resulting consequences boosts students’ science process skills.

Gardening fosters life skills, such as teamwork, patience, self-confidence and responsibility.

School gardening also promotes an increase in vegetable consumption. If students grow something, they’re more likely to eat it.

Challenges with school gardens

However, establishing and maintaining a school garden program isn’t easy.

Many teachers feel they don’t have the time or funding to use gardening in their teaching, especially when their districts set goals based on test performance.

Many teachers also report they don’t feel confident enough in their understanding of gardening to teach it effectively.

Gardens don’t have to be flashy or expensive to help students learn, but they still cost some money that schools may not have. Space can also prove an issue, because some school administrators see even tiny gardens in 5-gallon buckets as encroaching on their schools’ playgrounds.

Aesthetics can create another hurdle. Many administrators whom I’ve spoken to think school gardens are messy, and rightfully so. Often they have weeds, they don’t look well manicured like a botanical garden, and a lot are neglected during the summer.

But that messiness is how students learn. Students grow their skills when they have the freedom to experiment with different gardening techniques, see how much room different plants need to grow, and determine what variables they will have to rethink for the next growing season.

If volunteers or teachers visit after the students and clean up or fix their mistakes, the students don’t see the outcomes of their decisions, and they don’t see any reason to change the inputs or growing methods.

Through gardening, students can gain an appreciation for farmers and their food supply. When coupled with lessons about agricultural systems, students learn to make informed food purchases and better understand the economic and political challenges that farmers face.

And nothing beats a garden-grown tomato.

Shelley Mitchell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. School gardens help students learn science and connect with agriculture – but making them happen isn’t easy – https://theconversation.com/school-gardens-help-students-learn-science-and-connect-with-agriculture-but-making-them-happen-isnt-easy-279919