What Is ELSEE?
The ELSEE Mission and Purpose
The ELSEE Mission
ELSEE (Environmental Laboratory for Sustainability and Ecological Education) is a childhood outdoor learning laboratory in a San Jose, California, inner city neighborhood. The ELSEE model values and perpetuates nature, grows abundant organic food, and protects our soils, drinking water, and the air we breathe.
The ELSEE Purpose
The ELSEE project is a model to provide youthful citizens with the values and skills to develop and sustainably manage urban environments, for today and in the future. ELSEE provides the protection and perpetuation of ecological services, returning disturbed soils to their natural state, assuring clean water and air and healthy food production. The ELSEE model teaches thoughtful planning, design, construction, and on-going stewardship.
21 Common Questions about ELSEE
What does ELSEE stand for?
ELSEE is an acronym for The Environmental Laboratory for Sustainability and Ecological Education.
Who is ELSEE's sponsoring organization?
It is a project conceived, directed, and managed by the California Native Garden Foundation (CNGF).
What is ELSEE?
It is an idealized outdoor classroom that will be developed as a sustainable, public/private partnership.
What are ELSEE's goals?
ELSEE is a teaching laboratory model designed and built to the highest standards of sustainable architecture and sustainable site development.
The goals are to teach children about:
- gardening using the ecology-based model
- growing and preparing native food, and integrating it into a mainstream diet
- producing conventional food with urban agriculture technology
- the hands-on components of the Environment and Education Initiative (EEI), the new ecology curriculum for California schools.
Where is ELSEE?
ELSEE is at 76 Race Street in San Jose, California.
How large is ELSEE?
ELSEE is on a .4-acre square piece of property, bordered on the north side by Garland Street, on the west by Race Street, on the south by St. Leo the Great School's driveway and on the east by St. Leo's parking lot.
When did ELSEE begin?
Officially, ELSEE began on March 2, 2010, when volunteers from the California Native Garden Foundation began teaching classes to 100 second to seventh graders from St. Leo the Great School next door to the property. Unofficially, ELSEE began eight years ago when Middlebrook Gardens moved to 76 Race Street, a former broken concrete parking lot, and began converting it to native plant demonstration gardens with examples of sustainable landscape features, such as gravel parking, porous concrete, flagstone patios, rustic shade arbors and seasonal rivulets. During these past years, Middlebrook Gardens created a corporate headquarters where its clients can visit and see our craftsmanship, our selection of sustainable materials and technology, and our native plant gardens organized by the regional plant communities of the Bay Area.
Why did ELSEE begin?
The spark that ignited the ELSEE idea was provided by Fred Soltanzad, the landlord who owns the property. His intentions are eventually to sell the land and recoup his investment. In order to get a fair price for it, he submitted plans to San Jose to convert the site to a mini-mall with parking. His plans were approved, but he doesn't want to sell until the markets are more favorable, suggesting 2014 as a possible sale date. We intend to buy the property from him at that time.
Alrie Middlebrook, founder of Middlebrook Gardens and President of the California
Native Garden Foundation decided that the resource that 76 Race Street had become over the past eight years was worth preserving and continuing to develop along the path of its beginnings.
The question was how could the land be purchased? Where could funds be found? How could the land be further developed to support its present use? And how could the present land use be more appropriately developed as a community and neighborhood resource, especially as an outdoor classroom, initially for the students at St. Leo's next door but potentially for other schools as well?
How will ELSEE thrive after it is built?
When ELSEE is completed, its operation and management will be sustainable and profitable.
ELSEE will have six sources of income:
- The Eating California Restaurant and its retail food sales. CNGF will create its own native edible food products with the Eating California label and sell them in the restaurant, online, and in retail grocery outlets.
- Middlebrook Gardens design/build garden studio pays the rent for CNGF office space.
- The native plant nursery, which propagates difficult-to-find native plants, is open to the public daily.
- CNGF will teach certification classes for sustainable sites certification through the USGBC and the SSI. CNGF Headquarters, 76 Race Street, San Jose, CA, is a pilot site for the SSI program. CNGF also teaches classes in other areas of interest, including Designing California Native Gardens, installing greywater systems, Eating California cooking classes, native basketry, garden mosaics inspired by nature, Twelve Months of Color in the Native Garden, aquaponics, and vertical gardening.
- Fresh fruits and vegetables grown in our vertical farm, and native organic edible foods grown on site will be sold at ELSEE.
- Visitors to ELSEE will pay an entrance fee to tour ELSEE. Publications and souvenirs will be sold in the Visitor's Center.
How will the ELSEE model create income for other communities if it is recreated in those communities?
ELSEE will serve as a functioning model for schools and neighborhoods everywhere to teach sustainable living skills and provide significant operating income, including money generated from urban organic food production. It will provide economic opportunities and income for schools and neighborhood centers to be more self-sustaining.
Who designed ELSEE?
Alrie Middlebrook drew the concept for ELSEE in the winter of 2010. Aaron Middlebrook expanded the original conceptual ideas to include the 3-D architectural drawings of the individual elements that comprise the ELSEE campus, including the subterranean visitor's center, vertical farm, the stacked ocean container classroom and dormitory, the Eating California Restaurant, the Erlandson's tree house, and the outdoor kitchen.
How much of ELSEE already exists and is being used today?
Many components of ELSEE already exist such as the nursery and propagation area, the design studio and indoor classroom, the fishpond, the cordwood retail nursery office, the constructed wetland, the vegetable container gardens, the native demonstration gardens, porous hardscape features, the garden mosaics, a living roof, and a native fruit orchard, including a wild grape-covered shade structure.
Two buildings already exist on the site. The house and garage serve as Middlebrook Gardens design studio, indoor classroom, and nursery office. A small residence, which is currently tenant-occupied, will serve as the future Eating California Restaurant.
What classes will be taught at ELSEE?
The ecology-based curriculum developed by the State of California will provide the content for our instruction. Working with classroom teachers, each grade will be taught the standards required, but outside, in a garden setting, teachers will use a hands-on, five-senses approach. Teaching will be project-oriented and project-driven.
Each class is divided into 5 teams. Each team is taught by one teacher, volunteer, and/or a student intern. Each student is required to keep a garden journal, bring it to class, and record each day's activities in the journal. All subjects are taught in the outdoor classroom.
Who will teach the classes at ELSEE?
Classes will be taught by student interns from local high schools and colleges. Participating high schools are Downtown College Prep, Willow
Glen High School, Notre Dame High School, and college interns from Foothill College, Cabrillo College, San Jose State University, and Santa Clara University. Assisting the students will be CNGF volunteers, parent volunteers, neighborhood volunteers, classroom teachers, and visiting guests, such as artists, scientists, ecologists, gardeners, architects, urban farmers, builders, engineers, botanists, soil scientists, musicians, storytellers, and dancers.
How will ELSEE become a model for school yards everywhere?
ELSEE is a prototype and the first of its kind anywhere. As we develop ELSEE, we will learn valuable lessons that will help us recreate this outdoor laboratory in school yards across our state. To begin this process, we will start in our neighborhood. First with St. Leo's, then to the 10 neighborhood schools within walking distance from Race Street. The district offices for San Jose Unified School District are one block from Race Street. ELSEE will be used as a training laboratory for classroom teachers to learn to teach the new ecology curriculum that will be required in California schools in 2014. In the future ecological education will hold a place beside reading, writing and arithmetic.
How will ELSEE attract student interns and artists?
We will offer one-month intern positions. Lodging, food, and instruction will be provided in exchange for work, project development, and teaching.
What college majors will be attracted to ELSEE's Internship Program and what will they learn?
Education, biology, environmental studies, business, both for profit and non-profit, engineering, architecture, landscape design, industrial design, city planning, nutrition, hospitality, construction management, botany, nursery management, sustainable development, literature, art, music, theater, and dance.
The interns will learn how to educate the citizens of tomorrow using the skills that they are most passionate about in a laboratory that replicates the urban environment of our future.
What is CNGF and why is it the lead organization behind ELSEE?
CNGF (The California Native Garden Foundation) is a public benefit and educational non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation. It was founded in 2004 by Alrie Middlebrook, David Long, Dr. Glenn Keator, Dr. Barry Slater, and Tom Bradner. The goal of CNGF is to promote gardening with native plants and to bring their under-utilized beauty to home gardens and the designed landscape. CNGF awards native garden design grants to local schools who apply. Winning school applicants must have a group of committed volunteers and teachers organized to get the garden built and will volunteer as long term stewards. In addition to providing the garden design, CNGF works with the school team to get the garden built and provides additional volunteers and docents for each school garden's stewardship program.
When did CNGF assume responsibility for ELSEE?
During the winter of 2010, when the idea of converting the Middlebrook Gardens site into ELSEE first germinated, CNGF, as a public benefit and educational non-profit, assumed the sponsorship. Middlebrook Gardens has provided free rent and office support to CNGF since it was founded in 2004. As funds to realize ELSEE are available, CNGF will purchase the property from Mr. Soltanzad and become Middlebrook Gardens' landlord. This rental income is one of six sources that will sustain ELSEE’s operations.
How will revenue be generated to pay for ELSEE?
The funding will come from many public and private sources.
- Foundations and institutions who fund environmental projects, environmental education, food safety and security, sustainable development and green job development, outdoor educational programs, clean air and clean water programs, organic urban agriculture, water conservation and watershed management, reduced carbon, zero waste, art education, student intern development, and so on.
- Public funding for economic green development, environmental education, neighborhood improvement and enhancement.
- Private donations to CNGF.
- Fund-raising events hosted by CNGF members and friends.
- Private corporations such as food distributors and processors, agribusiness concerns, solar and alternative energy manufacturing companies, green building materials manufacturing, engineering and technology companies, construction management enterprises, and restaurateurs.
How long will it take to build ELSEE?
We plan to have ELSEE completed in five years. ELSEE is in full operation now and will remain so during all phases of construction. All site and architectural development will conform to the benchmarks set forth by the Sustainable Sites Initiative. We will endeavor to implement as many elements as possible during the two-year Sustainable Sites pilot program, which concludes in 2012. The overall rating is determined by what elements are actually completed by that date.