Cynthia Oliva

Life Lab cultivates children's love of learning, healthy food, and nature through garden-based education. Life Lab is a pioneer and leader in garden-based science, nutrition and environmental education. Founded in 1979, Life Lab now serves more than 5,000 preschool and elementary students directly through local programs in Santa Cruz County, CA, and positively impacts the lives of more than 500,000 students across the U.S. each year through teacher training and curriculum sharing. In 2001 we developed our Garden Classroom, an educational garden located at the UC Santa Cruz Farm, where we train teachers in garden-based education and serve more than 2,500 children annually through seasonal field trips and summer day camps. In April 2015 we welcomed our first students from high-need elementary schools in the Pajaro Valley for hands-on science, environmental, food and nutrition exploration field trips at our Blooming Classroom garden on a Watsonville farm. Our Pajaro Valley Initiative also includes close partnerships and year-round programs with five Pajaro Valley Unified School District elementary schools with 90%+ Latinx, 75%+ English language learner, 90% low-income student communities. We are training and equipping more than 60 teachers at these schools to use garden classrooms for core lessons connected to Next Generation Science standards, Common Core math and language arts, and more. We also provide professional development training and award-winning curricula to more than 2,000 educators across the U.S. each year, helping them develop and use gardens as "living laboratories"​ for learning about nutrition, food systems, science, the environment and much more. We host a School Garden Support Organization Leadership Institute annually in partnership with Whole Kids Foundation. Our seminal book, The Growing Classroom, is considered by many an indispensable teaching resource for garden-based science and nutrition education and is used worldwide. Life Lab is also a leader in collaboration among organizations engaged in this work. We co-facilitate the National School Garden Network, CA School Garden Network, and smaller regional networks. We cofounded California FoodCorps and are national trainers for FoodCorps service members in 18 states, districts and territories. We also cohost the edWeb.net Growing School Gardens learning community.