YRCP GARDEN PROJECTS

 YRCP STEM GARDENS OBJECTIVES:

• Increase the number of minority and under-served youth who pursue higher education STEM careers.

• Utilize gardens to increase minority, female, and under-served youth interest and engagement in STEM experiential activities.

• Increase youth involvement in environmental stewardship of their schools, homes, and community.

• To provide mentoring and internship opportunities for minority, female, and under-served youth in STEM related careers.

 SELECT PDF  LINK below to print our Gardens Flier 

The raised beds in a demonstration garden allow youth opportunities to learn and engage in experiments by growing a variety of flowers, vegetables, herbs, and herbal plants.  The gardens are raised to make them  handicapped accessible.  YRCP's  installed a demonstration garden at Thomas Stone High School in Waldorf, Maryland which was recognized as a USDA People’s Garden.

During the TEENS & TOTS in the GARDEN workshops YRCP teens assist younger children rotate through four to five  interactive stations where they learn the benefits of:

• healthy eating, 
• nutrition, 
• exercise, and 
• how to grow vegetables.

In addition to being an outdoor interactive learning site demonstration gardens enable youth to learn, entrepreneurial skills, and presentation skills by selling to the community the plants and vegetables they raised.

An Interactive Science Garden installed on your school site will provide students with hands-on opportunities to learn such STEM skills as the chemistry of composting, and the science of solar energy, and more. Students can use an Interactive Science Garden to conduct science projects, and complete lessons in biology and chemistry.

WETLANDS RESTORATION

YRCP members have teamed up with youth and adult community groups to restore native plants in wetland areas. This restoration projects can also be used for hands-on outdoor science class activities. 

FOREST TRAILS RESTORATIONS

The forest trails rehabilitation projects YRCP worked on involved transforming asphalt and mud trails into a porous interpretive running/walking nature trail, clearing debris, marking the existing trail, removing invasive plants, and adding habitat, pollinator and other food source plants.