Nonprofit ‘Green Our Planet’ transforms local classrooms with hydroponics gardening

By Geneva Zoltek

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    LAS VEGAS, Nevada (KTNV) — Students throughout the valley are taking environmental lessons indoors.

With the help of local nonprofit Green Our Planet, teachers across Clark County are installing hydroponics gardens in classrooms, allowing students to grow vegetables without soil.

“Lettuce, collard greens….our students help to decide what we want to plant,” said Levi Casto, who teaches environmental arts at Cactus Park Elementary in North Las Vegas.

“It’s just a lot of fun to have them realize that they have the power to create their own foods and to create their own plants, no matter where they are,” Casto said of his students learning with the hydroponics lab.

One excited student summed up the appeal simply: “When they’re done growing…you can eat them!”

Founding Principal Karli Casto believes the program creates an important connection between food and its origins.

“Just the power of, like, collecting an egg, petting a chicken, you know, checking on your plants each day to see what’s new,” Casto said, who founded Cactus Park to engage students with agriculture.

The school is filling an educational gap in North Las Vegas with this unique approach — which beyond growing plants, includes collecting eggs from chickens, and taking care of goats on campus.

“We’re blazing a trail that hasn’t necessarily been blazed before here in our neighborhood. We’ve been thankful to have a partnership with Green Our Planet, to be able to expand that more and more year over year,” Casto said.

Green Our Planet, founded by Kim McQuarrie and Ciara Byrne, provides both the equipment and lesson plans for the program, aiming to reconnect students with nature.

“Like 150 years ago, 90% of Americans, lived on a farm, grew up on a farm, knew all about farming, and now it’s like less than 2.5%. So a lot of knowledge has been lost. It’s great to see it being regained right here in a setting like this,” McQuarrie said.

“Everything that happens in the garden in a box at a school is the same thing happening in the Amazon jungle, the same thing happening in the wilds, anywhere in the world,” McQuarrie continued.

From humble beginnings with a single school in Henderson in 2013, Green Our Planet has expanded to 200 schools in Las Vegas, 400 across Nevada, and 1,200 schools nationwide.

“We’re touching the lives of more than 500,000 students,” Byrne said. “The recipe to our success, is without a question community.”

The team says hydroponics is a solution to modern farming challenges, including limited space, climate change, and water scarcity.

“Hydroponics uses 80 to 90% less water than traditional farming,” McQuarrie said.

In celebration of Earth Day, Green Our Planet is hosting a giant farmers market where Cactus Park students, along with 51 other Clark County schools, will sell vegetables they’ve grown with their hydroponics systems.

The Earth Day farmers market will take place this Tuesday at Downtown Summerlin starting at 9:30 a.m. and ends at 12:30 p.m.

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