Growing Healthy Kids is proud to partner with the MDUSD Career Pathways program in Ygnacio Valley High School and Concord High School to offer high school students the opportunity to get involved in outdoor education! Working with Growing Healthy Kids team members, participating high school students made a direct impact on elementary schoolers in their district and expose elementary students to a variety of careers within their chosen career pathway.

For the last 3 years, Growing Healthy Kids has trained Ygnacio Valley High School Juniors in outdoor education instruction. The Education Academy cohort at YVHS receives training from experienced garden educators, and then practices delivering outdoor education lessons to elementary school aged students on field trips to Growing Healthy Kids gardens throughout the district. Each junior has the opportunity to deliver one science and one nutrition education lesson in the garden, practicing hands-on teaching skills with students aged TK-5. These mini-internships help students hone hands on teaching skills as a precursor to their senior internships.

At Concord High School, students in the Construction Technology Pathway build essential projects for school gardens! For example, Concord High students built Root View Boxes for 17 elementary school gardens that give students a "deeper" view of plant structures. Construction Academy students then take field trips to elementary school gardens to install their projects and to share with elementary students about what they built and about careers in building and construction.