At a glance
The UW Green Square at UW Tower is a student-run urban agriculture space focused on sustainability, food equity, and… Read full summary
- Funding received
- 2024-2025
- Large
- Awarded
- $14,066
- Funding partners
-
- Services and Activities Fee (SAF)
- Website & social links
One of our first harvest from the 2024 season
One of our heirloom variety tomato plants, Indigo Rose, we got as a start from the UW Farm
One of our pollinator friendly flowers, Cosmos, we grew from seed at the UW Green Square. This was in August when our garden was in full swing.
One of our garden beds where we planted Indigo Rose tomato plants and Scarlet Runner Beans.
Our Scarlet Runner Beans in midseason of 2024!
The UW Green Square at UW Tower is a student-run urban agriculture space focused on sustainability, food equity, and stewardship. Originally funded by the Campus Sustainability Fund (CSF) in 2015, it serves as an educational garden for students interested in sustainable agriculture. The space has employed six seasonal student workers and engaged 40 volunteers over 28 quarters. The project seeks CSF funding to enhance its ability to model small-scale urban gardening and continue enriching the UW community with cultural and educational opportunities related to sustainability.
The UW Green Square at UW Tower is a space for students to explore and demonstrate urban agriculture and sustainability and serves as a green space to inform our community about food equity and stewardship. We are requesting the Campus Sustainability Fund help us in the process of elevating the UW Green Square’s ability to model a sustainable, small-scale urban garden. The UW Green Square at UW Tower is a small student-run project separate from the Center for Urban Horticulture and is best utilized for community and cultural enrichment and as an educational opportunity for students interested in sustainable agriculture.
The UW Green Square was originally funded by CSF in 2015 as a demonstration garden where students could learn about urban gardening. Before the establishment of Green Square, UW employees at the UW Tower established and volunteered to care for what was called the UW Tower Patio Demonstration Garden in 2010. Between 2012 and 2015, the garden relied on volunteer students from UW's CELE (Center for Educational Leadership Education, formerly the Carlson Center). 2015 was the first year that one of those student volunteers could apply for and receive the necessary grant funding that brought the project under the CSF umbrella.
To date, Green Square has employed six seasonal part-time student workers and helped 40 CELE student volunteers learn about urban gardening over 28 active quarters.
Cheryl Wheeler
Project lead
- cherylwh@uw.edu
- Affiliation
- Staff
- Affiliated groups
- Program Director - International Specialized Programs - UW Continuum College
Lyle Phillips Hendrix
Team member
- lylejp0@uw.edu
- Affiliation
- Student
- Years
- 1 year(s) remaining at UW
- Affiliated groups
- UW Green Square
Project Proposal
The UW Green Square Urban Garden serves as a beautiful green space in the middle of a busy urban landscape. It functions as a working garden, producing food to donate to the University District Food Bank. The UW Green Square Urban Garden aims to illustrate how to transform a challenging urban space into a thriving, sustainable garden that produces food and serves as an educational and recreational resource for the community.
Many people admire the UW Green Square. From UW Tower employees visiting on their lunch to people finding respite while bustling around the U-District to students who are exploring their campus for the first time or only discovering our green space post-COVID, there’s a vested interest in the UW Green Square.
To better serve its purpose as a site of sustainability, student involvement, community outreach and support, and accountability, the Green Square project is requesting to expand and reassess funding, participants, and its overall planning.
Key Stakeholders and Core Project Staff
The key stakeholders of the project are UW Tower employees, visitors of the garden, and student workers and volunteers involved in the project.
Core Project Staff:
- Student workers
- UW Tower Green Square Grant Manager - Cheryl Wheeler, Program Director for International Specialized Programs at UW Continuum College
- UW Tower Facilities Operations Maintenance Specialist- Mark Pruitt
Projects contribute to CSF’s values of sustainability, diversity, learning, and continuing to create a relaxing, attractive space for visitors, students, and employees.
Education. Materials that educate garden enjoyers about pollinators, companion plants, plant varieties, sustainable gardening, diversity, anti-racism, and equity.
Art Installations. These installations can be both educational and functional, removable from the UW Green Square’s structures. They support local art and UW creative majors and combine arts and culture with sustainability.
Events. Organized events can celebrate diversity, honor Indigenous land stewarding practices, provide education about native plants, ecology, and urban sustainable agriculture, call attention to food scarcity, and highlight the connection between nature and art.
Garden Infrastructure. The Green Square can serve as a site navigating sustainable water and soil practices—e.g., composting, rain barrels, encouraging pollinators through pollinator gardens and beehouses, and prioritizing plant diversity and native species
Student involvement is integral to the success of UW Green Square.
Students must cultivate effective communication: acting as the primary contact between the Grant Manager, Operations Manager, potential resource organizations, outside grants, CSF, and Green Square volunteers.
Students demonstrate self-efficacy: they must oversee communications between all parties/stakeholders involved in the Green Square, disperse important information, and adhere to garden maintenance schedules.
Students are expected to keep the following records:
- A detailed log of the activities/actions pertaining to the Green Square
- a complete plant record including the type of plant, specific variety, number planted, and growth
- all physical and/or event projects in progress at the Green Square
- progress photos and important information related to events or educational opportunities through social media channels
Students find innovative ways to integrate and promote sustainability within an urban setting, acknowledging limitations and continued improvements to the project.
Career Development
Students will gain experience in:
- project management
- long-term planning
- grant-writing skills
- event organization and planning
- social media
- sustainable practices
- urban agriculture
- local food systems
- establishing connections with nonprofits, community organizations and missions, local charities, and sustainability efforts.
Mark Pruitt
Operations
- markpr@uw.edu
- Affiliation and department
- UW Tower
UW Tower Facilities
Facilities
- uwtower@uw.edu
- Affiliation and department
- UW Tower
UW Tower Art Committee
Art Committee
- uwtower@uw.edu
- Affiliation and department
- UW Tower
Request amount and budget
Budget Summary
In order to fulfill all aspects of this project, primarily funds for student worker compensation and gardening materials, we are requesting minimum grant funding of $20,500
Specifically, $20,500 in 2025 can be allocated as follows:
1 Student Worker, Compensation, February 2025 - October 2025 (40 weeks), $20.76/hr, 19 hrs/Week - with 23% added to cover benefits is $25.53/hr, 19 hrs/Week = $19,402.80-19,500.00
Gardening Materials, including natural pest deterrents, soil amendment, seeds, and tools to upkeep the garden as well as help create growing records = $600
Professionally built signage and post displays, raw material, and design/creation cost = $400
How the project will react to funding reductions
Reduced funding from the Campus Sustainability Fund would result in the following:
For a reduction in 10%, 20%. and 50% of funding, we would reduce hours for student workers, which may result in less time allotted to event planning or data collecting, i.e., going from 19 hours to 10 hours per week for a student worker. In the case of a 20% to 50% reduction, there would be limited funds for educational signage. For a 50% reduction in funding, there would also be limited funds for garden equipment for pest prevention and materials for sustainable practices such as organic compost. In the instance of a reduction in funding, the UW Tower Facilities typically will cover less expensive materials for the UW Green Square. The most significant impact of reduced funding would be the reduced compensated hours for the student worker.
Plans for financial longevity
The student worker and budget manager work together to ensure that funding from the Campus Sustainability Fund is managed correctly, including the process of completing and submitting a Letter of Intent and Full Grant Proposal to the Campus Sustainability Fund grant committee when required. The student worker will be provided with resources on the full grant process, including contact information for the CSF grant coordinator and materials used to complete the grant proposal process, on a shared database (Google Drive). The student worker position is the most important financial support that requires consistent follow-up each year from the Campus Sustainability Fund.
Long-term management and maintenance of our project will be supported by in-kind contributions from UW Tower Facilities and by establishing UW Green Square as a recipient of peer-to-peer fundraising opportunities through TogetherUW. The Green Square project will also continue to receive in-kind donations from the UW Farm and related urban gardening organizations across Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. For example, the project has a microgrant with GROW Northwest for seed donations in the 2025 growing season. In-kind contributions are tracked in our shared Google Drive folder for future student workers and volunteers to maintain communication and updates for the microgrant and other donations.
Timeline of Project Execution
The next cycle of the UW Green Square project will start in February 2025 and conclude in October 2025. A February start guarantees time for early planning, involving both spring and summer growing seasons, as well as time for students attending events for other organizations and planning our own. The project renews every year during February; student worker position advertising begins in November of each year.
The Green Square focusses on 3 key aspects: gardening, projects, and student involvement.
The Green Square's primary function is to serve as a sustainable giving garden.
There are 4 phases of gardening:
Prep. February-March. At this time it is important to reach out to many resources on the compiled resources list, begin seed gathering, receive starts, and amend and turn over soil for growing.
Growing. March-August. During the spring and summer, we sow seeds outdoors, focus on companion planting, pest deterrents, and watering.*
Harvesting. March-October. During the spring and summer, doing maintenance on the existing plants and structures we have, harvesting mature plants, donating to the U District Food Bank, and replanting.*
Winterizing. September-October. Final harvesting of produce, seed saving, cover crop planting, and preparing for the next year of grant-funded student workers.
*Growing and harvesting are cyclical as there will be many opportunities to grow and harvest during spring and summer
Plans for long-term project management
To maintain project longevity, two things are important for the success of the project, and both depend upon supporting student workers. One is ensuring that student workes have access to sufficient resources when they start their growing season. The UW Green Square has a shared Google folder that contains organized records of resources and communication with UW Farm and other urban agriculture or sustainability organizations unaffiliated with the UW. This shared database also includes a planting log, project log, a grant log, drafts and finals of the Letter of Intent and the Full Proposal, and additional gardening resources. Inside the shed for UW Green Square, we also have a binder with educational materials and resources, as well as a written log for future student workers and volunteers.
The second part of ensuring project longevity is to expand the paid hours for the student workers on this project for more flexibility to complete the diversity of tasks necessary. Gardening and hands-on maintenance is an important part of UW Green Square, and so is connecting to other like-minded organizations and groups, creating educational materials, and organizing or attending events that promote urban gardening. With more available work hours, student workers can dedicate that time to important tasks such as data collection and organizing community learning events at Green Square.
Problem statement
Urban environments often exclude the possibility of environmental contributions, like functional green spaces, while planning and executing urban design and structure. People who live in cities rarely have the opportunity to grow their own food and get in touch with their food system. While Seattle is an exception to the lack of green spaces in urban areas, it's mostly parks, beaches, forests, etc. The P-Patch program has made it particularly easy for people to have a garden plot available to them, but it can only serve so many Seattleites. Demonstration gardens are out of the way for many busy students and people affiliated with the UW.
Problem context
The UW Green Square is a functional green space in the middle of a busy, urban environment. In a space most people are used to passing by during their commute, the space encourages people to stop and observe the possibilities of urban gardening.
It caters to public interest in urban gardening, supports pollinators, and acts as a place of respite for UW Tower staff, curious UW students, and everyone in between. While there are many urban gardens in Seattle, many of them are private or situated in or around community centers and not readily accessible to the average commuter. The garden sustains its own smaller ecosystem during the growing year raising awareness about native plants, pollinator-friendly gardens, and heirloom-variety, organic vegetable growing.
The UW Green Square has significant potential as an event space for educational, recreational, and environmental-related activities. Like-minded organizations such as SER UW, Beautify UW, Dirty Dozen, SER Native Plant Nursery, ASUW Student Food Cooperative, Students of Color for Public Health, Lettuce Eating Club, and others can be great partners for elevating the UW Green Square's event capacity including efforts to demonstrate urban gardening, recycling art, community-building, and education on sustainable living in urban areas.
One challenges of the UW Green Square is to commit its space fully to feeding the UW community. Washing the produce per the UW standard for use on campus is logistically difficult and energy inefficient, and it requires hauling produce to the UW Farm to get washed and packed. Our food donations are welcomed at the University Food Bank, which is within walking distance and pre-washing is not required.
Measure the impacts
| Impact / goal | Metric(s) of success | UW stakeholders impacted |
|---|---|---|
| Demonstrate ability to cultivate a garden/green space in an urban environment | At least 10 kinds of produce successfully planted and cultivated | Undergraduate, Graduate, Academic staff, Admin staff |
| Educate students about urban gardening | Each year, student workers/volunteers change or implement 1-4 projects to improve sustainability | Undergraduate, Graduate, Academic staff, Admin staff |
| Community engagement with the space | 20 or more self-report surveys collected on positive effects from UW Tower associates and student workers | Undergraduate, Graduate, Academic staff, Admin staff |
Education and outreach goals
The UW Green Square can be publicized to campus through organizing and advertising monthly work parties through social media or the UW Farm for both students and UW Tower employees. Instructors involved in Landscape Design, Food Systems/Nutrition, Community Environment and Planning, can visit with student groups for different projects. We directly reach out to professors about opportunities at UW Green Square. The UW Green Square can serve as a site for smaller-scale research regarding agricultural or soil sciences. The UW Green Square aims to invite 1-3 classes from these disciplines to utilize the garden for educational purposes in the 2025 season.
UW Green Square has an Instagram account and can increase outreach and collaboration between similar organizations through liking, commenting, reposting important related events at UW, and posting updates often. Social media outreach can coincide with attending these events as well as creating them for activities within the UW Green Square space or events that the UW Green Square student workers and volunteers sponsor and organize. These events could be centered around recycled art installations by students, seed swaps, plant sales, and event promotion around community, land stewardship, and other values shared with similar organizations and the Campus Sustainability Fund. For example, UW Green Square would like to collaborate on student-created art installations, recruit 1-2 volunteers, and create or collaborate on 1-4 events at UW Green Square during the 2025 season. Events could vary in nature, but are expected to focus on urban gardening, student-staff cooperation, community engagement around sustainable practices such as recycling art, plant and seed swaps, and educational talks or presentations.
The Daily UW is a good option for reaching students who keep up to date on the news at UW. We can The Daily to write a newspaper article about UW Green Square and its impacts on the student workers, volunteers, operations, and people who work at UW Tower. UW Green Square will communicate with The Daily to ensure there's an article and update on UW Green Square for the 2025 season. We can further elevate the visibility of UW Green Square and incur more visitors or interested parties for classes, research, or volunteer work, through physical posters on bulletin boards around campus, primarily in the Hub and the Odegaard, Suzzallo, and Allen libraries.
Student involvement
Student involvement is integral to the success of UW Green Square.
The student worker cultivates effective communication by acting as the primary contact between the Grant Manager, Operations Manager, potential resource organizations, outside grants, CSF, and Green Square volunteers. Self-efficacy is another important skill as they must oversee communications between all parties/stakeholders involved in the Green Square, disperse important information, and adhere to garden maintenance schedules.
The student worker also works with a large database for self-report and for maintaining important records such as a detailed log of the activities/actions pertaining to the Green Square, a complete plant record including the type of plant, specific variety, number planted, and growth, all physical and/or event projects in progress at the Green Square, and progress photos and important information related to events or educational opportunities through social media channels.
As a student worker, there are important skills like project management, long-term planning, grant writing, event organization and planning, and urban gardening that make UW Green Square a small project but a large and immersive learning process.
Student workers and volunteers learn to be innovative as they continue to improve upon previous urban gardening practices at the UW Green Square while simultaneously acknowledging the limitations of a smaller public gardening space. They collaborate with other students and gardening or sustainability organizations and clubs within UW and help cohost and participate in specific community building events.
Problem statement
Urban environments often exclude the possibility of environmental contributions, like functional green spaces, while planning and executing urban design and structure. People who live in cities rarely have the opportunity to grow their own food and get in touch with their food system. While Seattle is an exception to the lack of green spaces in urban areas, it's mostly parks, beaches, forests, etc. The P-Patch program has made it particularly easy for people to have a garden plot available to them, but it can only serve so many Seattleites. Demonstration gardens are out of the way for many busy students and people affiliated with the UW.
Problem context
The UW Green Square is a functional green space in the middle of a busy, urban environment. In a space most people are used to passing by during their commute, the space encourages people to stop and observe the possibilities of urban gardening.
It caters to public interest in urban gardening, supports pollinators, and acts as a place of respite for UW Tower staff, curious UW students, and everyone in between. While there are many urban gardens in Seattle, many of them are private or situated in or around community centers and not readily accessible to the average commuter. The garden sustains its own smaller ecosystem during the growing year raising awareness about native plants, pollinator-friendly gardens, and heirloom-variety, organic vegetable growing.
The UW Green Square has significant potential as an event space for educational, recreational, and environmental-related activities. Like-minded organizations such as SER UW, Beautify UW, Dirty Dozen, SER Native Plant Nursery, ASUW Student Food Cooperative, Students of Color for Public Health, Lettuce Eating Club, and others can be great partners for elevating the UW Green Square's event capacity including efforts to demonstrate urban gardening, recycling art, community-building, and education on sustainable living in urban areas.
One challenges of the UW Green Square is to commit its space fully to feeding the UW community. Washing the produce per the UW standard for use on campus is logistically difficult and energy inefficient, and it requires hauling produce to the UW Farm to get washed and packed. Our food donations are welcomed at the University Food Bank, which is within walking distance and pre-washing is not required.
Measure the impacts
| Impact / goal | Metric(s) of success | UW stakeholders impacted |
|---|---|---|
| Demonstrate ability to cultivate a garden/green space in an urban environment | At least 10 kinds of produce successfully planted and cultivated | Undergraduate, Graduate, Academic staff, Admin staff |
| Educate students about urban gardening | Each year, student workers/volunteers change or implement 1-4 projects to improve sustainability | Undergraduate, Graduate, Academic staff, Admin staff |
| Community engagement with the space | 20 or more self-report surveys collected on positive effects from UW Tower associates and student workers | Undergraduate, Graduate, Academic staff, Admin staff |
Education and outreach goals
The UW Green Square can be publicized to campus through organizing and advertising monthly work parties through social media or the UW Farm for both students and UW Tower employees. Instructors involved in Landscape Design, Food Systems/Nutrition, Community Environment and Planning, can visit with student groups for different projects. We directly reach out to professors about opportunities at UW Green Square. The UW Green Square can serve as a site for smaller-scale research regarding agricultural or soil sciences. The UW Green Square aims to invite 1-3 classes from these disciplines to utilize the garden for educational purposes in the 2025 season.
UW Green Square has an Instagram account and can increase outreach and collaboration between similar organizations through liking, commenting, reposting important related events at UW, and posting updates often. Social media outreach can coincide with attending these events as well as creating them for activities within the UW Green Square space or events that the UW Green Square student workers and volunteers sponsor and organize. These events could be centered around recycled art installations by students, seed swaps, plant sales, and event promotion around community, land stewardship, and other values shared with similar organizations and the Campus Sustainability Fund. For example, UW Green Square would like to collaborate on student-created art installations, recruit 1-2 volunteers, and create or collaborate on 1-4 events at UW Green Square during the 2025 season. Events could vary in nature, but are expected to focus on urban gardening, student-staff cooperation, community engagement around sustainable practices such as recycling art, plant and seed swaps, and educational talks or presentations.
The Daily UW is a good option for reaching students who keep up to date on the news at UW. We can The Daily to write a newspaper article about UW Green Square and its impacts on the student workers, volunteers, operations, and people who work at UW Tower. UW Green Square will communicate with The Daily to ensure there's an article and update on UW Green Square for the 2025 season. We can further elevate the visibility of UW Green Square and incur more visitors or interested parties for classes, research, or volunteer work, through physical posters on bulletin boards around campus, primarily in the Hub and the Odegaard, Suzzallo, and Allen libraries.
Student involvement
Student involvement is integral to the success of UW Green Square.
The student worker cultivates effective communication by acting as the primary contact between the Grant Manager, Operations Manager, potential resource organizations, outside grants, CSF, and Green Square volunteers. Self-efficacy is another important skill as they must oversee communications between all parties/stakeholders involved in the Green Square, disperse important information, and adhere to garden maintenance schedules.
The student worker also works with a large database for self-report and for maintaining important records such as a detailed log of the activities/actions pertaining to the Green Square, a complete plant record including the type of plant, specific variety, number planted, and growth, all physical and/or event projects in progress at the Green Square, and progress photos and important information related to events or educational opportunities through social media channels.
As a student worker, there are important skills like project management, long-term planning, grant writing, event organization and planning, and urban gardening that make UW Green Square a small project but a large and immersive learning process.
Student workers and volunteers learn to be innovative as they continue to improve upon previous urban gardening practices at the UW Green Square while simultaneously acknowledging the limitations of a smaller public gardening space. They collaborate with other students and gardening or sustainability organizations and clubs within UW and help cohost and participate in specific community building events.
Problem statement
Urban environments often exclude the possibility of environmental contributions, like functional green spaces, while planning and executing urban design and structure. People who live in cities rarely have the opportunity to grow their own food and get in touch with their food system. While Seattle is an exception to the lack of green spaces in urban areas, it's mostly parks, beaches, forests, etc. The P-Patch program has made it particularly easy for people to have a garden plot available to them, but it can only serve so many Seattleites. Demonstration gardens are out of the way for many busy students and people affiliated with the UW.
Problem context
The UW Green Square is a functional green space in the middle of a busy, urban environment. In a space most people are used to passing by during their commute, the space encourages people to stop and observe the possibilities of urban gardening.
It caters to public interest in urban gardening, supports pollinators, and acts as a place of respite for UW Tower staff, curious UW students, and everyone in between. While there are many urban gardens in Seattle, many of them are private or situated in or around community centers and not readily accessible to the average commuter. The garden sustains its own smaller ecosystem during the growing year raising awareness about native plants, pollinator-friendly gardens, and heirloom-variety, organic vegetable growing.
The UW Green Square has significant potential as an event space for educational, recreational, and environmental-related activities. Like-minded organizations such as SER UW, Beautify UW, Dirty Dozen, SER Native Plant Nursery, ASUW Student Food Cooperative, Students of Color for Public Health, Lettuce Eating Club, and others can be great partners for elevating the UW Green Square's event capacity including efforts to demonstrate urban gardening, recycling art, community-building, and education on sustainable living in urban areas.
One challenges of the UW Green Square is to commit its space fully to feeding the UW community. Washing the produce per the UW standard for use on campus is logistically difficult and energy inefficient, and it requires hauling produce to the UW Farm to get washed and packed. Our food donations are welcomed at the University Food Bank, which is within walking distance and pre-washing is not required.
Measure the impacts
| Impact / goal | Metric(s) of success | UW stakeholders impacted |
|---|---|---|
| Demonstrate ability to cultivate a garden/green space in an urban environment | At least 10 kinds of produce successfully planted and cultivated | Undergraduate, Graduate, Academic staff, Admin staff |
| Educate students about urban gardening | Each year, student workers/volunteers change or implement 1-4 projects to improve sustainability | Undergraduate, Graduate, Academic staff, Admin staff |
| Community engagement with the space | 20 or more self-report surveys collected on positive effects from UW Tower associates and student workers | Undergraduate, Graduate, Academic staff, Admin staff |
Education and outreach goals
The UW Green Square can be publicized to campus through organizing and advertising monthly work parties through social media or the UW Farm for both students and UW Tower employees. Instructors involved in Landscape Design, Food Systems/Nutrition, Community Environment and Planning, can visit with student groups for different projects. We directly reach out to professors about opportunities at UW Green Square. The UW Green Square can serve as a site for smaller-scale research regarding agricultural or soil sciences. The UW Green Square aims to invite 1-3 classes from these disciplines to utilize the garden for educational purposes in the 2025 season.
UW Green Square has an Instagram account and can increase outreach and collaboration between similar organizations through liking, commenting, reposting important related events at UW, and posting updates often. Social media outreach can coincide with attending these events as well as creating them for activities within the UW Green Square space or events that the UW Green Square student workers and volunteers sponsor and organize. These events could be centered around recycled art installations by students, seed swaps, plant sales, and event promotion around community, land stewardship, and other values shared with similar organizations and the Campus Sustainability Fund. For example, UW Green Square would like to collaborate on student-created art installations, recruit 1-2 volunteers, and create or collaborate on 1-4 events at UW Green Square during the 2025 season. Events could vary in nature, but are expected to focus on urban gardening, student-staff cooperation, community engagement around sustainable practices such as recycling art, plant and seed swaps, and educational talks or presentations.
The Daily UW is a good option for reaching students who keep up to date on the news at UW. We can The Daily to write a newspaper article about UW Green Square and its impacts on the student workers, volunteers, operations, and people who work at UW Tower. UW Green Square will communicate with The Daily to ensure there's an article and update on UW Green Square for the 2025 season. We can further elevate the visibility of UW Green Square and incur more visitors or interested parties for classes, research, or volunteer work, through physical posters on bulletin boards around campus, primarily in the Hub and the Odegaard, Suzzallo, and Allen libraries.
Student involvement
Student involvement is integral to the success of UW Green Square.
The student worker cultivates effective communication by acting as the primary contact between the Grant Manager, Operations Manager, potential resource organizations, outside grants, CSF, and Green Square volunteers. Self-efficacy is another important skill as they must oversee communications between all parties/stakeholders involved in the Green Square, disperse important information, and adhere to garden maintenance schedules.
The student worker also works with a large database for self-report and for maintaining important records such as a detailed log of the activities/actions pertaining to the Green Square, a complete plant record including the type of plant, specific variety, number planted, and growth, all physical and/or event projects in progress at the Green Square, and progress photos and important information related to events or educational opportunities through social media channels.
As a student worker, there are important skills like project management, long-term planning, grant writing, event organization and planning, and urban gardening that make UW Green Square a small project but a large and immersive learning process.
Student workers and volunteers learn to be innovative as they continue to improve upon previous urban gardening practices at the UW Green Square while simultaneously acknowledging the limitations of a smaller public gardening space. They collaborate with other students and gardening or sustainability organizations and clubs within UW and help cohost and participate in specific community building events.