Medicinal Botanical Gardens as Living Laboratories for Knowledge of Medicinal Plants and School-Based Health Promotion: A Quasi-Experimental Study in Urban Mexican Children

Background/Objectives: Medicinal plants are central to traditional medicine and primary health care, yet few school programs use medicinal botanical gardens as learning spaces. We evaluated a school-based educational intervention centered on a medicinal botanical garden on medicinal plant knowledge and selected anthropometric, clinical, and biochemical indicators in urban primary school children. Methods: A quasi-experimental pretest–posttest study without a control group was conducted in an urban public school in Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico (January–June 2025). A garden with 15 medicinal species and a 15-session educational program (30 h) were implemented. A total of 103 children aged 7–12 years completed pre- and post-intervention assessments: a nine-item pictogram questionnaire (Cronbach’s α = 0.83 in a validation sample of 195 children; six knowledge items formed the knowledge score), anthropometry, vital signs, and capillary glucose, cholesterol, and triglycerides. Changes were analyzed with paired t-tests (Wilcoxon signed-rank as sensitivity analysis) and chi-square-based tests for categorical data. Results: The knowledge score (0–12) increased from 4.14 ± 2.03 to 11.39 ± 0.90 (mean difference 7.25, 95% CI 6.84–7.67; p < 0.001), and all children improved. Small but significant decreases were observed in weight (−0.33 kg), body fat (−0.25 percentage points), BMI (−0.43 kg/m2), total cholesterol (−3.4 mg/dL), triglycerides (−5.6 mg/dL), and glucose (−7.0 mg/dL) (all p < 0.05), whereas heart rate, oxygen saturation, and blood pressure did not change. Most cholesterol and triglyceride values were at the lower limit of the device. Conclusions: A medicinal botanical garden combined with a structured educational program was associated with a large improvement in children’s medicinal plant knowledge and small changes in some health indicators. Given the single-group design, causal effects cannot be established, and controlled studies are needed.