Ashley Fine teaches water conservation through school gardens. Her presentation describes several water-saving strategies that can be taught and implemented with students in school gardens, including active and passive rain harvesting, drought-tolerant crop selection, mulching and soil-building, subsurface irrigation with ollas and watering stakes, and intentional use of shade. Her presentation included a charming short video where students demonstrate their understanding of local water resource issues.

Presenter info: Ashley Fine has been working in school gardens for over fifteen years. Currently, she is a full-time garden educator at Skyview School where she teaches an integrated science and social studies garden-centered curriculum to kindergarten through eighth grade students. She works with students and parent volunteers to maintain several edible school yards and a quarter acre food forest and native plant garden. During the growing season, she helps facilitate a weekly student-run farm stand at Skyview school. In addition, Ashley also runs an after school clubs, summer camps and a gardening program at the Launch Pad Teen Center. Ashley serves on the Steering Committee for Slow Food Prescott and helps organize events for a professional learning community made up of local garden educators.