Editor’s note: The following is part of an ongoing “Sowing Change” series about urban farming.
In the heart of Las Vegas, a quiet revolution is taking place in schoolyards. Green Our Planet, one of the largest school garden programs in the U.S., is transforming how students connect with their food, their environment and their future.
The Packer spoke with Elizabeth Schroeder, senior farmer for Green Our Planet, about the program’s growth from a single pilot to a citywide movement changing young lives.
A program takes root
Every movement starts with a spark. For Green Our Planet, that spark ignited from a desire to connect students to the natural world while addressing critical issues like nutrition, STEM education (science, technology, engineering and math) and water conservation in a city known more for its bright lights than its greenery.
The program is achieving its goal, now in 44 states and five countries, with impressive results; in surveys, 93% of students show an increase in STEM content knowledge; 83% of students show an increase in behavior, STEM engagement and healthy eating habits.
What began as a few raised beds in Las Vegas has grown to over 200 school gardens across the city. These gardens aren’t simply beautifying the schoolyards; they’re also improving student engagement, boosting science test scores and fostering healthier eating habits.
A need to learn the land
Before heading to Las Vegas, Schroeder farmed in South Carolina and Florida. The move to the desert brought new challenges.
“This is the place I’ve had to be the most resilient, because in South Carolina and Florida we [literally] stuck a tomato in the ground and it grew with barely any irrigation,” Schroeder says.
The desert environment leads to a short planting window as well.
“If you don’t get your seeds in early, it just won’t work,” she says. “For example, in planting pumpkins, we get them in as early as possible in the hopes that the plant will be big enough to withstand the extreme summer heat.”
It gets so hot that the plants experience a dormant season in the middle of summer, says Schroeder, adding that farmers use cover crops as part of organic practices.
“We use the chop-and-drop method to mulch the soil because we really like to have physical barriers to shade the soil,” she says. “That helps so much.”
A calling to teach
Schroeder started at Green Our Planet in September 2022. After staying home with her daughter for two years and growing food together in their backyard, she says she learned the value of teaching children to grow food.
“We learned together, composting and getting our hands dirty, so when I got the position with Green Our Planet, I knew it was the perfect job,” she says.
The chance to work in gardens and get children involved felt like a calling.
Schroeder started as a farmer and worked up to the senior farmer position, in which her main role is educating the rest of the farmer team about growing practices.
Three teams of two people work the gardens and visit each school garden once every two weeks. To fill the time when they’re not on site, Schroeder says they educate students and teachers to care for their gardens in the interim.
Fruits of their labor
In addition to learning from the growing experience, students put on a farmers market twice each year, which Schroeder says is the largest student-run farmers market in the nation.
“The students come out and harvest on the morning of the market. During the week, they’re out there pulling weeds, planting stuff as part of the garden clubs,” she says. “At the farmers markets, the students take the vegetables and crafts they’ve created and sell them. Then all of the profit gets reinvested back into the garden club at each school.”
Students also take home produce to enjoy.
“It’s not fun that there are food deserts, but it is fun that I get to show kids that they can eat fresh food in the food deserts around Las Vegas,” Schroeder says. “There are some places you can only go to a corner store for anything to eat or a food truck or something.”
But now, children and adults alike are learning where bees come from, where peas come from and how strawberries grow, she says.
“It’s cool to teach people how their food grows, where it comes from and how long it takes to grow things that we can readily buy at the grocery store,” Schroeder says. “So many people don’t realize where our food comes from.”
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