Crystal: [00:00:00] I’m Crystal DiMiceli, and welcome to the Forces for Nature show.

Do you find yourself overwhelmed with all the doom and gloom you hear of these days? Do you feel like you, as just one person, can’t really make a difference? Forces for Nature cuts through that negativity. In each episode, I interview somebody who is doing great things for animals and the environment. We talk about the challenge they’re addressing, the solution they have found, what keeps them going, and we’ll [00:00:30] leave you with practical action tips so that you too Can become a force for nature.

Today’s guest is Ciara Byrne, CEO of the organization Green Our Planet, whose mission it is to bring gardens and hydroponic laboratories into schools, which has actually proven to be quite an effective method of connecting kids and nature. And it’s this connection, which I’m sure won’t surprise you, that is helping to foster their desire to protect the planet in neat and interesting ways.[00:01:00]

Hi, Chiara. Thank you so much for joining me on Forces for Nature. It’s so great to have you.

Ciara: Thank you, Crystal. My pleasure to be here.

Crystal: So we’ve become so disconnected from nature to the point that people are often even unaware of the efforts that go into producing the foods that we eat. Why and how are school gardens an important link to teaching sustainability ethics and promoting [00:01:30] biodiversity?

Ciara: I love this question. I love this question, Crystal, because it really gets at the heart of what GreenerPlanet is all about. And just to answer it, if you don’t mind, I’d just like to take a little tour back in history to explain how we came to be an organization, essentially. So, basically, myself and my partner, Kim Macquarie, we Co founded green our planet in 2013, and we were documentary filmmakers and we traveled all over the world from everywhere from like Papua New Guinea to Peru.

And [00:02:00] we made films for a National Geographic Discovery Channel, PBS, BBC, and so on really what. Those 20 years were all about was for us being able to see how glorious and wonderful our planet is. And then when you look at that in the scope of the universe, when you look back in these amazingly powerful telescopes that we have now from the Hubble space to now the Webb telescope, and you look back to the beginning of time, and you look through all these planets throughout the universe.

We can’t find any life on them [00:02:30] and these days people are getting excited if there’s any sign of like a bacteria on Mars and yet here we are on our planet where we have some of our most charismatic and amazing species from like tigers and lions. all in danger of going extinct in the next 30 years. We are in the midst of a sixth extinction.

And so when myself and Kim were working with this amazing conservationist, quite famous conservationist called Dr. Richard Leakey in Africa, [00:03:00] we were working with him in 2011 and 2012. And we were working on this film about the sixth extinction. And essentially Richard had written this book. Warning everybody that, you know, all the species that were around in 1900, all the other life forms apart from Homo sapiens that were around in 1900, at the rate they were going extinct, half of them will be extinct by 2050.

This means that human beings are going to be responsible for wiping out half of all the living species on the planet, which is [00:03:30] insane. So Kim and I were working on this film. And we were chatting with Richard one day and we were talking about what can we do, right? We have become so disconnected from the planet and yet our very survival is, you know, we can’t survive without the planet, we can’t breathe without the planet, we can’t eat, we can’t, we don’t have water and yet we’ve all become so disconnected from that reality.

And so we’re sitting there talking about that. And [00:04:00] Dr. Leakey said, listen, he said, I’m concerned that people seem to think that if we relegate the conservation of our planet to these different organizations, whether it’s World Wildlife Fund or Conservation International, that they’re going to take care of things.

And me as a human, I don’t have to do anything. And he said, we need to wake people up and we need them to understand we all have to play a role. Anyway. Okay. So that’s kind of the backstory. Kim and I go back to [00:04:30] Las Vegas and we’re talking about this and thinking how can we connect people to the planet?

And that’s your question, right? What, what does school gardens do? And so in the end, it’s a bit of a long story, which I won’t get into now, but in the end, we ended up. Coming across this idea of creating a movement around school gardens and really I’ll be honest with you It wasn’t any genius on our part.

It was sort of an accidental Happening where we started helping principals [00:05:00] and teachers who wanted to get gardens here in Las Vegas We started helping them get their gardens up and running With no idea of creating a nonprofit initially, we just started helping them do it because they’d reached out to us.

We made these little short films for them and they raised money on a platform that we had created. And then they said, well, you know, what are we going to do? How do we get the kids out there? We need curriculum. And so we helped them create the curriculum. We helped them create farmers markets and so on and so forth.

But what was so [00:05:30] interesting about this, and this goes back to your question is it didn’t come from me and Kim, the desire for the school gardens. Across the United States is coming from teachers and principals because they recognize that this disconnection from the planet is really harming our kids.

Our kids have no sense of where they are in the universe and how they belong on this planet. And you know, because you’re very passionate about this subject, that [00:06:00] when we don’t understand that we feel disconnected from ourselves, not just from the planet, we feel disconnected from ourselves because we are part of nature.

And so principals and teachers have recognized that and they’ve recognized that the gardens and our hydroponics laboratories and simply growing things is that journey that. Students can embark on every time they come back after their school holidays, they plant seeds, they follow the journey of the seeds, and there’s so much to learn [00:06:30] on that journey.

There’s science, there’s engineering, there’s farmers markets and entrepreneurship, there’s conservation, there’s nutrition. So when students embark on that journey, they’re taking a journey of reconnecting to themselves and to the planet. So that’s the role that school gardens play.

Crystal: Do school gardens offer any environmental benefits?

Ciara: Here’s the thing about the school gardens. We are in the midst of a climate crisis. We [00:07:00] are in the midst of the sixth extinction, right? There hasn’t been such a large biodiversity collapse since the dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago. And so this reconnecting people to the planet is Essential.

And the way we can do it with kids, of course, is through school gardens. And I think when students are outside and they’re surrounded by butterflies and bees and hummingbirds, when they put their hands in the soil and they feel the worms, [00:07:30] you know, running through it, they love the worms. And when they see the seeds that they plant sprout into beautiful sunflowers, into delicious carrots, into, you know, sparkling lettuce.

When they see all that, they see the magic of being alive and what it means to be alive. And they fall in love with their school garden, which when you translate it to the bigger picture, they fall in love with the planet, which means when they grow up, they will want to protect the planet because they have a relationship with [00:08:00] it.

And that’s the environmental benefits. of the school gardens. It’s fostering a connection that will turn our students into caregivers for the planet.

Crystal: Have you seen any of those transitions? Do you have a story to illustrate that?

Ciara: I do, yeah. So you’re saying about the students becoming environmentally aware?

Is that what you meant by that?

Crystal: Yeah, like their love of the garden translates to a larger love of the planet.

Ciara: Yeah, yeah, I, [00:08:30] I have. So we were building a school garden at a school and the, the students were super excited about it. And two of the students came up to me, they were both in third grade, Manuel and Mateo, and they were from a very, very, uh, Low income neighborhood in Las Vegas, downtown Las Vegas.

And behind the garden, you could see the government apartments where they lived. And, you know, they’re pretty dilapidated. And these two students came over to me [00:09:00] and they told me that they were really excited about their school garden for many reasons. They said, one of the reasons is because the plants were going to give them more oxygen to breathe.

Which is true, which is very sweet. And they said, but even more importantly, that their teacher had started teaching them lessons about the planet. And one of the things they had learned because they were getting this school garden was how the turtles were being endangered. Now, this is not, this is the middle of the desert, right?

But they were very concerned about the [00:09:30] turtles. And they said, we heard that the turtles were eating plastic bags and they were choking and it was very concerning to them. And so they asked me if I would consider signing a petition. Because they had went to their principal and they said to her, we would like to get recycling bins.

Because we don’t want the turtles choking on the plastic bags. And she said, well, if you get 300 signatures, I’ll get you the recycling pens. And so they asked me and all the people who were there at the garden built to you to sign this petition because they were [00:10:00] very worried. And it was in that moment that I realized all is not lost.

If two third graders in one of the lowest income neighborhoods in Las Vegas, their minds have been opened to the planet. through the building of their school garden. And their, their teacher and, you know, had shared this information about the turtles and they were really worried and they were, they’d created a campaign.

If they were going to do that, I know that there are many more students who will be doing that. And so, [00:10:30] yeah, I mean, I think that’s just one of the many stories.

Crystal: Oh, I love that.

Ciara: Where did your love of nature come from? When I was a kid, I really struggled with anxiety and depression, and I found my healing in nature.

And I think that because I was almost driven into nature, whether it was being by the sea, because I grew up in Dublin, or going into the woods, I really, really love trees, and I get so much Mental health [00:11:00] benefits, I suppose you’d call them from being in a, in a forest and a wood. And I learned that so young, it’s really deeply embedded in my cells and my soul, just that connection between the planet and, and me as a human.

And you know, when I sit in here in Las Vegas and when I look out over the city. And I see that over 60 percent of our kids are living in low income or in [00:11:30] poverty, which is a lot. It’s more than half of the kids. And that is of course, a trauma. I know that these kinds of traumas can be healed through this connection to the planet.

And so if you’re speaking personally, I believe that. Um, that’s my personal reason for doing the work that I do.

Crystal: You mentioned that the principals and teachers, they were reaching out to you to help get them to build gardens. What was the connection again? Because you, you made films for them?

Ciara: Yes. [00:12:00] Well, I didn’t want to go into the story because it’s very complicated, but okay.

So when we came back from Africa. And we were, Kim and I were trying to solve this problem, which was how can we get everybody involved, right? How can we get everybody excited about protecting the planet? And our idea that we came up with was to create a crowdfunding platform, which we called green our planet.

So greener planet. org because that this was in 2013. And I don’t know if you remember back 2011, I believe [00:12:30] Kickstarter started in 2011 and Kickstarter had taken off and all these artists around the world were raising money online To do creative projects. And so our thought was, well, what if we had a green Kickstarter?

What if we could say to communities, Hey, do you want to change out the light bulbs in your kid’s school and raise 500 to do it? We’ll go into greenartplanet. org. So that’s what we started. And when we started that crowdfunding platform, I heard about a principal at an elementary school called Wallen, and she was [00:13:00] trying to raise money to build a garden.

And I said to her, Hey, Kim and I will make a short video for you if you’ll test it on our website. And she raised 8, 000 within a few weeks, got the garden built and you know, the rest is history. And then what happened was other principals started coming to us and and teachers and we would make the short film and then and so on.

So that’s kind of the longer version of how we were trying to solve the problem. How do we connect people to the planet? How do we empower them to be conservationists? And the crowdfunding platform made the [00:13:30] most sense. But then as it evolved, it turned into a garden program.

Huh?

Ciara: So here we are. Yeah. Okay.

Almost a thousand gardens later, we’re at close to a thousand right now.

Crystal: Amazing. And these gardens, are they Funded by the schools.

Ciara: Yeah, it’s a great question. So now we’re operating in 44 states, working with close to a thousand schools, about 250, 000 kids, 15, 000 teachers, and [00:14:00] a lot of the funding for the gardens we raise.

So I do the fundraising. I bring in grants from different foundations, government funds, and the Education departments can get behind it and put funding behind the gardens is honestly not because of the connection to the planet, which you and I are so passionate about, but because the benefits of teaching kids outside, meaning that kids learn science better, right?

[00:14:30] We do better in literacy and, you know, cause they’re hands on learning. And so. Using that information and that data, we’re able to raise funds to build a gardens. So it’s, and schools do pay some of the money, but we, we raise most of it. I would say we raise about 75 percent of it.

Crystal: Okay. So are you an NGO or, uh, yes, we’re a nonprofit.

Okay. Does your curricula address the bigger issues like climate change and biodiversity loss? [00:15:00] It does. So we have,

Ciara: we have a variety of curricula. So we’ve got about at this stage over 500 lessons and they’re divided into different curricula. So we have STEM curricula for the outdoor garden and also the hydroponics laboratories.

And part of the STEM curricula is, there’s a section in conservation. In the elementary school, what I love about the conservation curriculum. Is that it’s all hands on, meaning [00:15:30] that it’s saying to kids, Hey, look around you and what can you do today? So, for example, they do an audit of their school to see how energy efficient is their school right now.

Is there anything that they could do to make it more energy efficient? And then there’s another lesson looking at their home and doing the same thing, looking at their lives, you know, are they driving to school every day? Could they cycle, could they walk, right? All these things. So I think that kind of curriculum is crucial, right?

Because if we [00:16:00] don’t create these good, healthy habits, when people are young, it’s harder to implement them when they’re older.

Crystal: I couldn’t agree with you more. I actually have my own program about. Based on individual actions. So very similar. That’s awesome. Yeah. Yeah. And you mentioned elementary school. Do you have specific grades that you work with or K through 12?

K through 12. And you also mentioned [00:16:30] farmer’s markets and green our planets giant spring farmer’s market is coming up. What can we expect from this year’s market?

Ciara: I’m really excited about this year’s market. It’s it’s on April 19th here in Las Vegas. We’re going to have over 600 students from across our school district here, the Clark County School District, selling their hearts out, selling the fruits and veggies from their gardens, their hydroponics laboratories.

And they also do crafts using things from their gardens. This market, I’m very excited because for the first time, [00:17:00] we’re actually bringing in teachers and partners from across the United States. So, you know, until, 2020 till COVID, we were very much a local program. And then when we went online in 2020, as a result of COVID, that’s when we started attracting other schools and teachers from across the country.

And for the first time, we’re bringing in teachers from like Michigan and Delaware and a few other places to see the farmer’s market. [00:17:30] With the goal to actually bring the giant student farmers market to other communities, and we’re super excited about that.

Crystal: Very cool. You talked about Mateo and Manuel. Do you have any other moments where you said to yourself, this, this is why I do it.

Ciara: Gosh, there’s a lot. Okay, I’ll, I’ll share one of my favorite stories. So, one of my favorite stories is, A while back, we initially started working in [00:18:00] elementary schools. First, this is so back in maybe 2016 that a teacher from a local high school here in Las Vegas, Desert Oasis High School, her name was Jenny Davis.

She came to me and she said, Hey, I hear you have a school garden program. I really want to bring a school garden to my school, Desert Oasis High School. And I said to her, well, We don’t have any curriculum yet for high school. So, you know, it didn’t really make any sense. And she said, Oh no, but here’s the thing.

She said, I’m a special ed teacher. And [00:18:30] so I have 11 students in my classroom. I’ve been working with them for the past few years. And these students. really have a challenging time existing in the world. They have very severe disabilities and I really believe that if I can bring them out to a garden once a day, it could really transform their lives.

So, I mean, how could I say no to that? So. We got her an amazing sponsor, the Mentors Foundation, who agreed to fund her school garden. [00:19:00] And she got a beautiful garden built with all the raised beds, an orchard, a classroom, compost area, shed, the whole thing. And she started bringing her students, the 11 students, out to the school garden every day for an hour.

And here’s where things got very interesting. In her school, and this is across our school district, I don’t know what it’s like in other school districts, but essentially in the special ed classes, they measure any kind of behavioral outbursts that the students have just to keep track and [00:19:30] see how students are doing, right?

And so she showed me her tracking. So she started bringing kids out to the garden in September. And this is where the behavioral outbursts were. And then the graph went down all the way to May. You could see this massive reduction in the challenging behaviors on the classroom. And she attributed it. it a hundred percent to the school garden, which is amazing, right?

Because here you have some students that can’t be on the football team or [00:20:00] the cheerleading squad, but they were actually running the garden. They weren’t just going out there. They were actually taking care of it. And so Jenny invited me to their first farmer’s market. And it was, I think it was in October.

I remember driving out to the school and it was kind of hazy and misty and a bit cold that morning. And I pulled up to the garden and I got out and immediately this young boy who has very severe autism came over and he said, I want to bring you on a tour. And he knew like the name [00:20:30] of every plant and the benefits.

And he gave me the whole tour. It was amazing. And then at the end of the tour, I went over to where they were having a farmer’s market, their first farmer’s market. And there was this girl called Desiree in a wheelchair. And she also couldn’t speak and she was very severely disabled. And she was in charge of helping people pack up their, their vegetables or whatever, and to, and, and getting the cash from them and her parents arrived.

And her parents told me [00:21:00] that this was a game changing moment for Desiree, that she’d never been able to be involved in anything really meaningful at school. And that now she was one of the key people in charge of the farmer’s market, that she was beyond elated. And that’s just one of thousands of moments like that, where you see that connecting people to the planet is magical.

It’s so much more than just learning about science. It’s so much more than just having a farmer’s [00:21:30] market, but there’s something magical and healing in it if we allow it. So that’s one of my favorite stories.

Crystal: That’s a good one. And it’s testament to what you were saying before that nature has healing properties and it’s good for, for mental health and even physical health.

And it was proven in that one, one class. So that’s beautiful. What are your future goals for Green Our Planet and how do you envision the organization evolving to meet the [00:22:00] growing challenges of environmental education and conservation?

Ciara: Another great question, Crystal. Um, so the, our team has created a goal for greener planet.

Not me, but our team. And the goal is to be in 10, 000 schools by 2032. And the reason 10, 000 is there are a little over a hundred thousand public schools in the United States. And so our team believes that if we can be in [00:22:30] 10 percent of them, that we will impact all of them, meaning that we’ll have kind of hit a threshold where other garden organizations, right.

And schools will do it without, like, obviously we’re not going to take Work with every school, but if we can work with 10 percent of them, we’ll have really sown the seeds of a movement across the entire country. And so I believe them. I think, I think that’s true. And so that costs a lot of money, of course.

And so [00:23:00] that’s the piece I’m working on raising the funding to make that possible. And then going along with that, of course, is, you know, every school where we work, they have their own farmers markets. But also bringing the giant student farmers markets to cities, towns, villages across the country, because that moment when the community comes together and when you have students being their farmpreneurs and showing what they’ve done and how they’ve been successful with their garden to their parents, [00:23:30] to the sponsors, to community members, that’s a very magical moment where.

Everyone sees the benefit of connecting to the planet, right? Not just the kids and the teachers. So our goal is to have a thousand farmer’s markets like that by 2026.

Crystal: You said farmer’s markets and big farmer’s markets. They’re two different kinds?

Ciara: Yeah, so the farmer’s markets at the schools, and they’re awesome too, right, because their parents are becoming engaged.[00:24:00]

And then the big farmer’s markets is when you have 10, 20, 50, in the case of Las Vegas, 60 schools coming together to have a farmer’s market in the community. Yeah.

Crystal: What challenges have you faced in implementing your program and how have you overcome them?

Ciara: That’s a good question. I would say. There have been many challenges and there have been many times when I wanted to give up.

I’m not gonna lie. I would say obviously and I think this is what every nonprofit is definitely, [00:24:30] you know, having the funding to continue. We’ve got over 30 people on our team right now at 32,

you

Ciara: know, that’s a lot of salaries to pay and you know, making sure that We can do that continuously. That’s always a challenge.

We are actually working on creating more sustainable revenue model, which I’m very excited about through two for profits that we started out of green art planet, one is a filmmaking company, greener plant studios, and the other one is a corporate hydroponics program. And both of those will feed [00:25:00] funding into greener planet.

So that’s partially going to solve our sustainability issues, which I’m very excited about. And then the second issue is really kind of doing what you’re doing, which is raising awareness so that all the principals and all the teachers get it right. So we’ve, as I said, we’ve had teachers and principals reaching out to us, but we also want to get into the schools where Maybe they don’t, they’re not aware, you know what I’m [00:25:30] saying?

And so really we, we do the work in that we ensure that our program is as successful as it can be in the schools where we are, and then we need the teachers and the principals and the parents in those schools to kind of spread the movement, right? Because principals aren’t going to come to us and teachers aren’t going to come to us unless they believe in the work.

And that’s why podcasts like yours are so important, right? We, all of us need to be doing the work. Like we’re doing our little bit over here, running the garden program. You’re [00:26:00] doing yours, raising the awareness and the other kinds of podcasts and films and all the things, all the things are necessary.

Crystal: Thank you for that. And, and side note, I’m actually doing a really big push right now to get more awareness of teachers at school admins and whatnot, like get them on my email list. And so hopefully they’ll be hearing this episode when it comes out. Yeah. See, that’s what

Ciara: I’m, exactly. That’s what I’m saying.

Like we do one piece of it and then you’re doing a piece and [00:26:30] you know, We all need to need to do our bit. And then it all adds up. I actually, my partner, Kim, he has a thing that I like. He says that we’re part of a mosaic of goodness. So we have this mosaic and your, your podcast is part of it. And Green Our Planet is part of it.

And all the various conservation organizations and people who recycle and people who talk to their friends about the planet, like all of it adds up to this mosaic of goodness for the planet. So it’s, it’s all important.

Crystal: I love that. It gives me [00:27:00] a beautiful visual. Now how I usually like to wrap up my episodes is to give the listener ideas on how they can help with what you’re doing or even for themselves.

For example, if they want to start their own garden and connect more deeply with nature. Do you have any advice on what the listener can do?

Ciara: Yeah, I do. I mean, my first piece of advice is very simple. Take a walk in [00:27:30] nature. And when I say take a walk, it doesn’t have to be out somewhere like in the woods or, you know, by the ocean because we don’t all have access to those beautiful places.

It could just be walking around your neighborhood where there are trees and gardens and flowers and really just give yourself space to connect to it and enjoy it. Because. That’s sowing a seed. And the seed that it’s sowing is this connection. Because in our hurried lives, when we hop in the car and jet off here and jet off [00:28:00] there, and when we miss the beauty that we’re a part of, that’s where things started going wrong.

Meaning that, You know, with the industrial revolution and with all the pollution that our corporations and our businesses and the water that we polluted, all of that happened because we’re disconnected. So when we’re connected, we won’t make decisions like that because we’ll be connected and we’ll care about the planet and the other species and so on.

That would be my first piece of advice. And [00:28:30] then if that really gets you going and you’re excited. Plant a garden and it can be a few plants in a pot that you enjoy on your balcony if you don’t have a garden or if you’re lucky enough to have a garden, you can plant some veggies on the back. It’s just fun.

It’s very relaxing gardening and like you’re literally connecting with nature, right? You’ve got your hands in the soil and so on. And it’s so easy to do. And there’s so many, there’s all kinds of organizations online that can help you plant a [00:29:00] successful garden. And then if you want a school garden, you know where to come greenartplanet.

org. We can help your schools get gardens going and hydroponics laboratories, and we’d be delighted to help. So they’re my two cents.

Crystal: That’s awesome. And I love that you have hydroponics laboratories as well. That is so cool. It’s fun. Kira, this has been very inspiring and I really connect deeply with what you’re doing because I [00:29:30] also am trying to work with schools and students and connect people with nature.

And so I really appreciate all that you’re doing. Thank you for what you do. You’re making a difference.

Ciara: Oh, thank you. You inspire me. We’re all part of that mosaic of goodness. It’s all needed. So thank you, Crystal.

Crystal: This conversation has me thinking about all of us. Not just kids. [00:30:00] We’re in a time when we’ve become so disconnected from nature with our heads always down being sucked into our screens. The providing opportunities where we get to be outside and feel the earth is invaluable. It’s surprisingly or not surprisingly beneficial for our wellbeing, but also helps to remind us why our eco efforts are so worth it.

So if you can start a garden, great. But if it’s not in the cards for you right now, what else can you do to [00:30:30] reconnect with nature? I’d love to hear, so reach out. Let’s chat.

Don’t forget to go to forcesfornature. com and sign up to receive emailed show notes, action tips, and a free checklist to help you start taking practical actions today. Do you know someone else who would enjoy this episode? I would be so grateful if you would share it with them. Hit me up on Instagram and Facebook at becoming forces for nature and let me know what actions you have been taking.

Adopting just one [00:31:00] habit can be a game changer because imagine if a million people also adopted that. What difference for the world are you going to make today?