Blue Adobe Project dba Sky Islands school

Sky Islands is an eco-focused independent public high school, non-profit and part of the Local First Arizona movement, and working to develop a 12-acre urban campus sustainably using permaculture practices.  We are in the process of developing a garden kitchen program and bringing our school kitchen up to code to work as a teaching kitchen.  We are developing cooking classes so that students can prepare slow food, healthy lunches with the help of local farmer's markets and the Tucson Food Bank.  By the end of this year we should have a producing seasonal garden from which to pick our own foods for the kitchen.  We already have a heritage orchard planted with desert-adapted stone fruits, citrus, apples, pomegranates and figs.  We have planted a pollinator garden and are part of the Monarch watch program.  And we have received grants to conserve water through watershed enhancements--curb cuts, basins and berms, and vegetation.  Students and staff, as well as neighbors, have done all the restoration of the land, including planting over 100 trees--all natives and edibles-- on site.

Please visit our website at www.skyislands.org and www.blueadobe.org for more information.  The concept plan for the 12 acre site is available as a link at 'Rogers Commons' on the school website.  I would very much like Sky Islands to become part of the Edible Schoolyard Network.  I used to live in Berkeley and had a bookstore on Shattuck Ave in the same block as Chez Panisse.  Please let me know how to proceed.  I follow the Slow Food movement closely, as well as farm-to-school programs.  Best regards, Shari Popen