At this year’s Garden Get Down, Grow Pittsburgh is proud to present the “School Garden Heroes” award to educators at the Environmental Charter School. We sat down with Vicky Hsieh and Deirdre Keller, two of the original garden founders, to hear about the garden’s growth over the last 15 years.
Back in 2012, a group of passionate educators at the Environmental Charter School (ECS) partnered with Grow Pittsburgh to launch a 12-bed school garden. After completing Grow Pittsburgh’s two-year train-the-trainer program, a dedicated team of teachers stepped up to take on the care, maintenance, and curriculum planning needed to keep the garden growing.
“After we graduated from the Grow Pittsburgh program, we applied to visit the Edible Schoolyards in Berkeley,” Deirdre shared. “And it really shifted our thinking. We went from thinking ‘this garden can connect to this academic standard’ to ‘this garden can connect to our students’ hearts and minds’. It also helped us to realize all of the historical and cultural components that you can teach through a garden program.”
ECS’s mission, in part, is “to foster knowledge, love of, and respect for the environment and preserve it for future generations.” Vicky shared that this mission was central to their original garden ambitions and to the garden’s evolution. “Everybody’s mind jumps to gardens when you think about nature, and as we started growing our garden program, we realized that we also wanted to embed more lessons about environmental justice and food access.”
Today, ECS runs two thriving garden sites for K-5 students. The primary school focuses on sensory and play-based learning, while the Intermediate school emphasizes cooking. Both emphasize tasting, sharing, and conversations around food justice and environmental sustainability. Raised beds and grow towers extend the learning into middle and high school.
Every detail, from what plants are grown to what lessons are taught, keeps student voice at the center and changes the programming year to year. Vicky and Deirdre shared that the garden’s flexible curriculum has created a grassroots sense of community among ECS students and teachers, leading to unique projects that incorporate aspects from all academic disciplines. And the garden has grown to include families as well, with “Garden Guardian” volunteers taking on summer care and volunteering to help with classroom cooking lessons.
Families have shared that students are more engaged with cooking at home after participating in the garden program, and that recipes taught at school have made it into their weekly rotations or special holiday menus. And students love trying foods from the garden, with one student sharing that “peas are starting to taste better than pretzels!”
When reflecting on the garden’s impact, both educators emphasized the program’s role in building community and environmental stewardship. “I really wish I had learned about all of this as a third grader,” said Deirdre. “ Because I really would have cared about it. I hope that this program sparks our students curiosity about food and food systems, and that it’s impacting what they’re focused on as they get older.”
We are excited to honor the Environmental Charter School at this year’s Garden Get Down for their continued commitment to edible education and community. Join us on August 19th to celebrate ECS and the rest of this year’s Get Down Honorees, including our “Resilient Community Growers” and our “Seeding the Future” awardees.
