Sierra House Growing Domes, Sierra House Elementary

 At Sierra House Elementary our 500+ students have the wonderful opportunity of gardening at high elevation in the Sierra House Growing Domes. After many years of hard work and fundraising, two high-tech geodesic growing domes were built at Sierra House in Nov. 2014.  The domes are geodesic and are 18 feet in diameter. We can have 10 students at a time in each dome.  An associated sustainable vegetable garden with 10 raised beds have been built. The domes and garden are an integral part of our every day curriculum and fit squarely into our focus on health, nutrition and mountain sports. We hope that this program that will be extended to all schools in the Tahoe-Truckee region.  Our goal is to get children growing healthy food, preparing it and consuming it in as much of a hands on manner as possible.  We also do special events such as a Farm Day, Daffodil Day (a school beautification project), and a butterfly pollinator garden is in the works. Our pumpkins, squash, tomatillos, and sunflowers were a huge hit last year with the classes and the community.  We also have a variety of unusual plants (for the Sierra Nevadas) in our domes including a grape, a kumquat tree, and herbs so that students can see how a variety of foods are grown.

Our gardening curriculum includes lessons in nutrition and agriculture and we try to meet all current CA standards. We are working with the University of California CalFresh Nutrition Education Program, which is funded through a joint agreement among the U.S. Department of Agriculture/Food and Nutrition Service (USDA/FNS), the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) CalFresh branch, and the University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE). We currently have two dedicated teachers on our Garden Committee who are creating curriculum and working with all of our teachers.  We have also hired a part-time garden aide to help design, present, and teach curriculum in the domes.  

This program allows the diverse groups within our community to work together in a community-based project free of language, generational, and social barriers. By coming together to grow food locally, sustainably and year round, we will create a healthier, stronger community for our children.   We are currently growing food in the domes with which the classes then can prepare a healthy snack for themselves.  We also are growing crops of lettuce and spinach that are served in our cafeteria on salad days.  We have a few hydroponics trays going as an experiment, using water from one of our 700 gallon passive solar water tanks which has 8 fish in it.  (The domes are each mostly heated/cooled by the 700 gallon water tanks.)