Sustainable Hospitality Pathway @ Mount Diablo High School

The Sustainable Hospitality Pathway is a Career Technical Education program for students in the International Hospitality & Tourism Academy (IHTA) at Mount Diablo High School in Concord CA. Students pursue a rigorous curriculum focusing on growing, cooking and serving healthy, sustainable meals; students also study eco-tourism, agri-tourism, outdoor recreation, and "greening traditional tourism". Sustainable Hospitality students take a sequence of classes which prepare them for the knife skills and menu planning necesary to cook healthy meals for themselves and students and teachers in the Pathway (serving to more than 50 plates/day); students also study Environmental Science and Sustainable Tourism, culminating with a professional internship in their senior year where they work with local businesses, non-profits and public agency partners -- such as the National Park Service (John Muir Unit), MDUSD Food Services, and the Wellness City Challenge.

Students also participate in a Sustainable Hospitality summer program and after-school program in which they learn to cultivate organic produce on campus for use in the healthy food service program on campus. Patrick Oliver is the Science Teacher in the Pathway; he was a CSA and certified organic market farmer for many years. The kitchen gardens at MDHS are roughly .25 acres; the beds are approximately 3 feet wide by 40 long: they are over 40 of them. In addition, there 3 parcels totaling more than 2 acres that are in the process of being developed into productive farm fields, orchards, an an outdoor classroom.