Founder, The Independent Project at Monument Mountain Regional High School

Student, Oxford University

Sam Levin is the founder of two innovative, student-centered programs at Monument Mountain High School \u2013 Project Sprout and The Independent Project. In its first summer, the community garden at the heart of Project Sprout provided over 1000 pounds of vegetables to local shelters and people in need. By the time Sam graduated, produce from the expanded garden and orchard was featured in three meals a week in his school\u2019s cafeteria and other schools in the region had embarked on similar gardening projects.

\u201cI saw kids waking up at six in the morning to harvest potatoes. But I couldn\u2019t reconcile the commitment and passion I saw in the garden with the lack of enthusiasm and engagement I saw in the classroom.\u201d

The difference, Sam recognized, was stewardship \u2013 in the garden the kids had control, responsibility and ownership. With that in mind, he and seven other students embarked on the first year of The Independent Project, a student-run school-within-a-school. Although the school itself does not have any solar panels, \u201cThe Independent Project\u2019s successes show us that giving young people more agency and authorship over their own education can unleash the hunger, curiosity, and passion for learning that is currently dormant in most students,\u201d says Sam, \u201cAnd its failures can inform our attempts to design better schools for 2030.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

School sponsored gardens are a great way to teach kids about environmental responsibility. It also teaches them about the power of the sun, and harkens to a time when our whole world was solar powered, without the modern conveniences of supermarkets and petroleum. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Founder, The Independent Project at Monument Mountain Regional High School Student, Oxford University Sam Levin is the founder of two innovative, student-centered programs at Monument Mountain High School \u2013 Project Sprout and The Independent Project. In its first summer, the community garden at the heart of Project Sprout provided over 1000 pounds of vegetables to… Continue reading Samuel Levin<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-59","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wgsi.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/59","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wgsi.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wgsi.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wgsi.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wgsi.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wgsi.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/59\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61,"href":"https:\/\/wgsi.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/59\/revisions\/61"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wgsi.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}