Workforce Development

The Civic Garden Center’s workforce development program engages high school juniors and seniors in hands-on urban agriculture, conservation and environmental education tasks that are essential to ecological sustainability in the Cincinnati region. Students:

  • Spend time working in gardens, maintaining green infrastructure and teaching basic gardening skills to community members who are eager to strengthen their local food system

  • Have opportunities to grow their knowledge of botany, horticulture, educational pedagogy and methods for building and maintaining meaningful partnerships

  • Receive targeted lessons that focus on the Ohio Means Jobs skills, which include essential work functions such as reliability, punctuality, discipline and collaboration

The goal of our workforce development program is to build the next generation of environmental advocates and green industry leaders who will tackle the challenges of today’s climate crisis using their infinite creativity and unique intelligence.

Sample Schedule

Internships run for five hours a day, two days per week for ten weeks. Students follow a schedule similar to the following:

  • Week 1: Orientation with site tours and staff introductions

  • Week 2: Horticulture at the Civic Garden Center

  • Week 3: Urban agriculture in local neighborhoods

  • Week 4: Habitat restoration/conservation 

  • Week 5: Green infrastructure & design

  • Week 6: Marketing & development for environmental organizations

  • Week 7: Plant identification techniques

  • Week 8: Plant propagation techniques

  • Week 9: Sustainability and future initiatives

  • Week 10: Reflection & presentation of personal growth over duration of program

Questions? Want to participate?

Please contact the program coordinator, CGC Ecology Education Manager Mary Dudley, at mdudley@civicgardencenter.org or 513-221-0981.