The TogetherGreen award is a competitive fellowship program for Conservation Leaders, to cultivate further leadership through community-based conservation action project. In May, I was notified that I had been selected for the $10,000 fellowship to develop a 'Foodshed to Watershed' Environmental Education Program for urban youth working on an existing urban farm in downtown Troy.
The farm is part of a jobs training program called The Produce Project, for urban youth from Troy High School. The idea of the Produce Project, is to use urban agriculture to provide essential job and life skills to the youth. The students participate in all aspects of the farm, from planting to harvesting, to selling at the Delmar Farmer's Market and several other area chefs and restaurants.
The goal of the Produce Project was also to provide hands on math and science skills building. That's where my project comes in. I'm planning to develop a year-long curriculum which connects the students to what they are doing on the farm, to the larger urban landscape and Hudson River Watershed, of which Troy is very much a part of.
The project will culimate in a stream cleanup along one of the creeks which runs through Troy. The Poestenkill and Wyantskill Creeks both run through Troy, and both have active fisheries. The curriculum I develop will involve some hands-on Citizen Science Projects such as amphibian monitoring at the farm, backyard bird count, and preliminary monitoring for the American Eel, part of the NYS DEC's Hudson River Estuary American Eel Monitoring Program.
The project is a really wonderful opportunity for the students working on the farm to connect to the local natural places right in their own backyard, and through various exercises, explore their own cultural and historical connections to place.
Above is a photo of all of the 2012 Awardees, at a 5-day conference and training we attended at Aullwood Nature Center in Dayton, OH in late May.
A big Thanks to National Audubon Society and Toyota for their support, and to Capital District Community Gardens, where I also work part-time as a grant writer. CDCG is one of the oldest community garden organizations in the country, and actively works to nourish healthy communities by increasing access to fresh food through community gardening, the Produce Project, Veggie Mobile and Healthy Convenience Store Initiative. For more info go to their webiste at www.cdcg.org.
Thanks to the Saratogian for their coverage of the project, and all their past coverage of Sustainable Saratoga and the many other great things happening in the Saratoga Community. It's a great local media resource.
For more info on TogetherGreen - here's the link to my project: http://www.togethergreen.org/fellows/fellow/amy-stock
