At the highest point of Woodside’s campus, a garden functions as a classroom for Green Academy, a three year course students can begin taking in sophomore year.
Each year in Green Academy, students learn about something different. They provide different learning opportunities, such as field trips. Green Academy emphasizes science based learning, project-oriented learning, specific green career readiness and college readiness focus.
“Sophomore year you learn about trees,” Green Academy senior Aylin Haro Rios said. “You learn about plants and how to plant stuff such as vegetables and fruits. Junior [year] you learn about water and why we need water. Senior year it’s all about building stuff.”
Green Academy allows for learning outside the classroom as well. They have two gardens at Woodside, the bigger one behind the A-wing and the smaller one outside of F-9. The students rotate the crops throughout the year. The bigger garden has chickens that the students can work with.
“Our sophomores have a class in Plant and Soil Science,” Green Academy science teacher Ann Akey said. “They’re taking care of both gardens right now.”
In the gardens right now, the sophomores are starting to grow small plants, but have bigger beds for the future projects. According to Rios, there is a lot of learning and community building. Students who join sophomore year and stay all three years will have most of their classes with the same classmates. It’s a newfound community for a lot of students.
“I was very nervous about joining,” Rios said. “[But] not too long after my sophomore year started I felt like I had found where I belonged. It [didn’t] matter where you [came] from, what [mattered was] what you know and what you’re willing to do and learn.”
All three grades go on different field trips, usually a different one each quarter. The trips are funded by the state. The trips range from a harvest farm to going to the Tesla Factory and river rafting. All the field trips relate to what students are learning in the class at the moment.
“[Students] can opt in to join us [and] be part of a smaller learning community,” Green Academy science teacher Alton Lee said. “[It’s a] community where they take some of their core classes, as well as one very specific green academy class within the Green Academy setting.”
