Youth Education

Sowing Seeds of Knowledge

The goal of Urban Harvest’s Youth Education Program is to
educate the next generation of gardeners in Houston.

Each School Garden is Unique. Based on the status and needs of your garden, we have a pool of resources and opportunities for your school to build a thriving and sustainable School Garden Program.

Your school doesn’t have a garden yet? If your project is just starting or at the idea stage, this is the ideal time to take our “Starting a Community or School Garden Workshop”.

Urban Harvest’s School Gardening Guide: The Urban Harvest’s School Gardening Guide is a comprehensive resource with a focus on how to grow and teach with vegetables and fruit trees that are appropriate to the Greater Houston area and why these are important plants to us scientifically and culturally. Includes subjects and gardening lesson topics correlated to Texas Essential Knowledge skills.

      • Get the Urban Harvest’s School Gardening Guide: Click here to download a digital copy. If you are an educator, attend our in-person Edible Academy professional development workshop and receive a complimentary printed copy)
      • Pre-requisite: None.

Affiliate Gardens’ Network: Become an Urban Harvest Affiliate Garden and join one of the largest networks of community gardens and school gardens in the country! Each season you will receive seeds, transplants, enrollment to our organic gardening classes (up to three gardeners), access to our Facebook Group, and other opportunities to sustain your garden.

      • Cost: $50 one-time lifetime Membership (Membership is tied to each school)
      • Pre-requisite: For active gardens only (Scroll down to learn what qualifies as an active garden).
      • Register your garden: If your garden is active, click here to submit a request.
      • We accept applications on a rolling basis.

The Edible Academy (CPEs credits awarded): This series of workshops prepare schoolteachers, parent and volunteer garden coordinators with innovative curriculum to transform school gardens into outdoor classrooms, teaching youth how to grow their own food, eat nutritious diets, and live healthy, active lifestyles.

      • We are an approved Texas State Board of Education Certification (SBEC) CPE provider. We offer Edible Academy teacher workshops each Fall, Spring and Summer Academy.
      • Pre-requisite: Designed for participants who have an existing school garden. For teachers, Garden Educators, and Parents.
      • Click here to visit our Edible Academy Page to learn more and register.

 

Garden Education Direct Services at Select School Sites

  • Thanks to our supporters, we are able to offer Garden Education at select sites!
  • We receive applications to partner from schools between June 1st and July 31st. Please note: We are full for the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school years.
  • For additional questions please contact Kim Perry, Director of Gardening Education at kim@urbanharvest.org.

Visiting Garden Educator Program is unique: wherein Urban Harvest’s Garden Educators provide ongoing garden lessons to support classroom teachers in the school garden. Teachers and their students participate in integrated Texas Essential Knowledge Skills (TEKS) garden lessons and demonstrations.  The Garden Educator also serves as a mentor to the classroom teachers and collaborates with them to model and demonstrate how to optimally utilize the school garden.

 “Our class enjoyed the program so much. We had a planting lesson, and planted bush beans.  They were a phenomenal success!  They grew and made a lot of beans.  The students were so excited as we watched the growing process, supplemented by our plant unit in the room.  We harvested and then counted all the beans into sets of 10. We had enough . . . to send home beans for every child”
– Kindergarten Teacher

“There are a lot of great things Urban Harvest’s School Program brings. It’s beneficial not just for the scholars but the school as a whole. Some of the scholars need some of these things that they don’t have at home. Some actually take the vegetables and fruit home and eat them.”
-Art Teacher

“The school garden is important to provide nutrition information to the parents and students as they are able to see a different variety of fruits and vegetables that they wouldn’t normally try. They tried Bok Choy for the first time here and loved it so now it’s a staple in our garden and we have to plant it each year.”
-Science Teacher