SAR Project | 2024

Early Care & Education Gardening

We are the Early Care & Education Gardening team for the 2023-2024 school year. Our team is focused on developing a safe, accessible, and sustainable garden at the UCLA Krieger Center. We hope that the garden will not only provide a hands-on learning experience but also serve as a living laboratory for young minds. Through the development and maintenance of this garden, we aim to instill in children a deep appreciation for nature and sustainability.

To inform our project we will be reviewing current literature on sustainable gardening and environmental education as well as conducting informational interviews with experts and the Krieger Center community. This is the first SAR project of its kind. Through meticulous planning and collaboration, we are crafting more than just a garden; we are developing a framework for the future of sustainability education.

Each element of our model, from the garden layout to the curriculum modules, is designed with scalability and longevity in mind. We hope to have potential to be a multi-year project, as we will only be producing a model and curriculum that can be built and implemented in a future SAR project.

Stakeholder: Dr Tashon McKeithan, Director of UCLA Early Care and Education

Team Leaders: Joseph Serafino, Mia James

Team Members: Ben Greider, Faith Shortridge, Yvette Lee, Grace Miller, Emma Carey