Our mission
The East Hampton High School Sustainable Garden is an educational setting that provides hands-on learning to students in an outdoor work environment. It connects children to the natural world by providing them with an opportunity to grow their own food and develop an ecosystem in an effective outdoor classroom. By giving students the responsibility to grow, care for, examine and enjoy a garden of their own, it gives them the capacity to care about their local environment and the environmental issues of the greater world.
Through integration into the school curricula, the EHHSSG provides an edible schoolyard with vast enrichments of daily student activities. The sustainable garden creates a dynamic outdoor space for teachers where curricula may be connected to the natural world. Student participation in a self-sufficient environment-- one which they themselves help to create-- encourages an environmental stewardship ethic, and creates for them a sense of place. As the garden also offers parental involvement in the school community, in turn it enables social outreach through student participation and community service.
It is another goal of this project to become self-sustaining through the use of as many renewable energy sources as possible in order to fuel the energy requirements of this functional learning space. Solar water heating, rain collection and water recycling, composting, and wind power are techniques that the project is dedicated to exploring, and eventually implementing. Organic methods will be the only approach to treating soil and handling pests, in order to maintain an ecosystem where food and children can coexist in a chemical-free environment.
As students become involved in the EHHS School Garden project, from construction to harvesting and beyond, they will become part of a greater sensibility and awareness of personal wellness and global responsibility. It is our hope that this experience will inspire our students to create a future of healthy living on a healthy planet.
Drafted by Kate Dodge McCarty
Through integration into the school curricula, the EHHSSG provides an edible schoolyard with vast enrichments of daily student activities. The sustainable garden creates a dynamic outdoor space for teachers where curricula may be connected to the natural world. Student participation in a self-sufficient environment-- one which they themselves help to create-- encourages an environmental stewardship ethic, and creates for them a sense of place. As the garden also offers parental involvement in the school community, in turn it enables social outreach through student participation and community service.
It is another goal of this project to become self-sustaining through the use of as many renewable energy sources as possible in order to fuel the energy requirements of this functional learning space. Solar water heating, rain collection and water recycling, composting, and wind power are techniques that the project is dedicated to exploring, and eventually implementing. Organic methods will be the only approach to treating soil and handling pests, in order to maintain an ecosystem where food and children can coexist in a chemical-free environment.
As students become involved in the EHHS School Garden project, from construction to harvesting and beyond, they will become part of a greater sensibility and awareness of personal wellness and global responsibility. It is our hope that this experience will inspire our students to create a future of healthy living on a healthy planet.
Drafted by Kate Dodge McCarty