Urban Agriculture
The Urban Ag Program Cultivates Connection and Creativity
It’s hands-on learning at its best and a way for students to fully live the values intrinsic to a Paideia education.
A program with extensive roots
The Urban Ag program got its start in 2010 when two Elementary science teachers joined forces to give their students a chance to tend two plant beds discovered on campus.
From those beginnings sprang a unique program, enriched by the establishment of Pi Farm in East Atlanta in 2019. Each year, students at every level of the school plant, study and tend a variety of fruits and vegetables at the farm along with a community herb garden, a medical botany garden and gardens for native and pollinator-friendly plants. The land also features wooded areas that are part of a restoration project partnership.
Today, the Urban Ag program involves faculty across the school creating curricular and cross-curricular activities that reinforce STEAM skills and principles, introduce environmental and sustainability themes, emphasize food justice and tie to the school’s central subjects.
Happily collecting dirt under their fingernails, students learn — as well as see, smell and taste — where food comes from through hands-on opportunities to practice sustainable agriculture. The program is equally about the important choice of where food goes; more than a third is shared with the community as students learn who has access to locally grown, nutrient-dense food, who doesn’t, and why.
Emily Roberts, director of Paideia's urban agriculture program, cheers the farm as a place to practice resilience:“Paideia emphasizes curiosity over mastery in many ways, and the farm is an excellent place to do so because there is always more to learn. ‘Failure is fertilizer’ is lived everyday.”
Being on the farm allows students to make stronger connections with the material. Sure, they can read about something or hear a lecture, but if they can experience it and tie the learning into a feeling, they will have much stronger memories of the content.
Miranda Knowles ’00 High School assistant principal and neuropsychology teacher
Among the bountiful skills learned in Urban Ag:
- Problem solving and adapting to a changing world
- Empathy and respect for all living things
- Preserving and protecting the natural world
- Being socially responsible with all our abundance
Touching all students — and the larger community
Paideia’s student-farmers run the gamut from age 5 to 18, with opportunities present at each grade level.
Urban Ag is taught in long- and short-term classes, and a class open to all High School students covers general farming, ecology of farming, cooking and nutrition, plants as medicine, food security/food justice, community engagement and sustainability. The class leads the recertification process annually for the farm’s status as Certified Naturally Grown.
For High Schoolers wanting even more, there is Urban Ag Club.
Through work at Pi Farm, I am thankful to have gained a strong sense of what productive, considerate civic engagement can look like. Meaningful volunteerism is a result of working with community members and engaging with their ideas rather than creating entirely new solutions to existing problems. With PiBlooms, we applied our understanding of civic engagement to a real-world scenario: the farm had the capacity to grow and harvest more flowers, and we knew the nursing home would benefit from receiving them! Our work is fueled by love, joy and a commitment to community-building.
Lucy Rotenberg ’25
Paideia’s Urban Ag program is hands-on learning in action
Students grow and share fresh food and flowers, connect with the community, and discover the joy of hands-on learning.
5,862
plants were grown at the Paideia farm
3,000
pounds of Certified Naturally Grown produce from our farm were provided to families
220
shares of food for 23 families were provided by Paideia's CSA. Of that, more than with 50% of the families were served at a reduced price
All
Elementary classrooms incorporate Urban Ag into their curriculums
100+
Junior High students spent time on the farm
250+
High School students took part in the Urban Ag program
Source: PAIDEA - Spring 2024