Alternative Family Education

We have five raised beds that students currently use to grow vegetables and edible herbs. We want to expand our garden teaching to include more urban agricultural techniques by building vertical gardens, using low-cost, easily-accessible materials. We also want to incorporate a rainwater harvesting system to irrigate both the existing raised beds as well as the proposed vertical gardens. Irrigation with the rainwater would be powered by two treadle pumps, which would be built by students and their families as a science project.

Our goal is to create a rainwater-irrigated vertical vegetable garden where students learn horticulture and nutrition, and will organize a farmer's market.

This grant would make it possible for our students to learn new ways of growing food with limited space while teaching water conservation/rainwater harvesting techniques. Using low cost materials and homemade treadle pumps will demonstrate resource recycling and low-technological, hands-on solutions.