AI for the Community Garden: Building a Practical Planning Tool for Southeast Queensland

Overview

Volunteer-run community gardens create important social, environmental and educational benefits, but they often operate with limited time, informal record keeping and constrained budgets. Garden planning can depend heavily on the practical knowledge of a small number of committed volunteers: when to plant particular crops, which beds receive sufficient sun, how much compost or fertiliser is needed, what has been grown previously, which crops work well together, and how to allocate scarce resources across the year. While this local knowledge is highly valuable, it can be difficult to document, share and use consistently as volunteer groups change over time.

This community-engaged project will work with Bulimba Community Garden to explore how structured data and simple AI-supported tools could improve practical garden/agricultural planning. The project combines sustainability, horticulture, data science, human-centred design, community engagement and responsible AI development. It will draw on existing garden plans, budget records, photographs, volunteer notes and local knowledge, alongside reliable information on Southeast Queensland planting conditions.

Research engagement

The student will:

• conduct a structured desktop audit of existing garden plans, photos, notes and budget records;
• design a practical data structure and agentic workflows for beds, crops, planting windows, soil needs, water requirements and inputs;
• review reliable local gardening guidance; and
• build a simple agentic system prototype in Python, R, or another appropriate platform. The goal is a usable decision-support garden/agricultural planning tool.

Research activities

The student will work with Dr Steve Bickley, members of the behavioural economics/AI research team at the ARC BITA Centre, and Bulimba Community Centre Garden volunteers. They will gain experience in data design, requirements gathering, spreadsheet/database development, lightweight programming, user-centred prototyping, responsible AI development and community-engaged research. Outputs will include a documented prototype, a garden data template, a practical planning guide and a short report identifying next steps for future research or scaling up the initial prototype into a production-grade implementation.

Beyond these deliverables, this project will serve as a great addition to the student’s professional work resume. By maintaining a well-documented GitHub repository of their code, database designs, and project materials, the student will build a tangible, publicly accessible portfolio that they can confidently point future employers to, demonstrating their practical capabilities and real-world impact.

Research skills

They will gain experience in data design, requirements gathering, spreadsheet/database development, lightweight programming, user-centred prototyping, responsible AI development and community-engaged research.

Outcomes

Outputs will include a documented prototype, a garden data template, a practical planning guide and a short report identifying next steps for future research or scaling up the initial prototype into a production-grade implementation.

Skills and experience

• Suitable for students in IT, data science, environmental science, design, engineering, business, agriculture-related fields or social science.
• Interest in sustainability and community projects is essential.
• Experience using programming software such as python, R and GitHub is desirable.
• Prior gardening/agricultural experience is welcome but not required.

Start date

2 November, 2026

End date

19 February, 2027

Location

Hybrid at QUT Gardens Point campus, online/remote work and occasional visits to Bulimba Community Garden (optional).

Additional information

The project provides access to existing garden planning material, volunteer input, QUT research supervision and prototype development guidance.

Keywords

• Artificial Intelligence
• Crop Planning
• Community Garden
• Urban Agriculture
• Decision Support
• Stakeholder Engagement

Contact

Dr Steve Bickley

+61 7 3138 5115

s.bickley@qut.edu.au