Youth Horticulture Program

The CCE youth horticulture program is an important part of how CCE achieves its mission of “enabling people to improve their lives and communities through partnerships that put experience and research knowledge to work.”

CCE Tompkins’ Youth Horticulture Program supports youth connection to plants and nature through a variety of programs, events, school collaborations, and community outreach. An important feature of much of CCE Tompkins’ Youth Horticulture programming is the venue, the 3-acre public garden, Ithaca Children’s Garden (ICG). CCE Tompkins has partnered with ICG since ICG’s founding in 1997. This unique partnership allows CCE education programs to multiply impact through expanded reach across the county, region, and beyond, to all 70,000 visitors to ICG annually.

Some of the programs that CCE Tompkins educators support or lead include:

• Hosting and teaching school groups across all grades and curricula at the ICG site;
• Gaia Circle, a program for middle school aged girls who love their girl selves, are uncomfortable with girlness, or those for whom girlness has never felt right, those who haven't thought much about it and those who feel no gender limits;
• After School @ ICG, an adventure play and nature immersion program everyday afterschool through the academic year, and summer camp at ICG.

CCE Tompkins educators also support professional development for teachers and educators who want to grow their confidence in teaching and learning outdoors, or through play-based or plant and garden-based curriculum.

In keeping with CCE’s land grant mission, our youth horticulture program puts into practice emergent research-based best practices across the disciplines of youth development, ecological land care, and justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion work.

Last updated May 4, 2021