At Badger Rock Middle, students are both farmers and entrepreneurs | Education
In the Badger Rock Middle School garden, eighth graders Samy Garcia Sierra and Aiden Collak carefully tend to dozens of seedlings, transplanting them into pots.
They’ll soon sell the plants they grew as part of a do-it-yourself watercolor painting kit, complete with instructions on how to boil the leaves to extract their natural dyes. Their peers are also crafting plant kits with the necessary ingredients to make pickles, salsa, enchilada sauce and soap.
The project is a partnership between the nonprofits Rooted and CEOs of Tomorrow. Throughout the semester, Badger Rock eighth graders create their own businesses and sell products made from the plants in their urban garden.
“I like that they’re teaching us this at a really young age,” Garcia Sierra said. “If we ever want to start our own business, we already know how and can go into the next phase in high school or college.”
Eighth-grade students Harper and Amelia repot seedings at Badger Rock’s urban garden. The class will sell kits to make salsa, enchilada sauce, spicy pickles, soap and watercolor paints.
While students end up taking home some of the profits, the class is “not just about making money,” said Sarah Karlson, a farmer and education director at Rooted, which aims to support food justice and urban agriculture. It’s also a lesson in social entrepreneurship: The students will donate a portion of the proceeds to an organization of their choice.
“It really is the students at the center, and that’s what makes this class so unique,” Karlson said. “I don’t know if there’s any other place where you have three agencies working together and truly focusing on the students at the center.”
“It’s a place where they can put their dreams and visions into action and reality,” she said.
Last year the students put together kits for customers to make three types of hot sauces, priced at $15 per bundle. The products sold out, and the class donated 15% of the proceeds to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Dane County.
This year the students’ kits will go on sale during the second week of May. Customers can purchase the products online and pick them up at the Badger Rock Neighborhood Center, 501 E. Badger Road, on May 25 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Principal Joey Rosas talks to Badger Rock eighth-grade students as they make spicy pickle kits.
A unique collaboration
Badger Rock is a diverse charter school located on Madison’s south side. Nearly 70% of its students are economically disadvantaged.
Among its unusual features are its community partnerships and its focus on sustainability, urban agriculture and social justice. The school shares a building with Rooted and the Badger Rock Neighborhood Center. Students play a key role there as staff in the gardens, at the center’s produce market and by helping with Rooted’s free monthly community dinners.
Throughout the school year, youth empowerment coaches Emily Fisher and Antwon Clipps from CEOs of Tomorrow have taught Badger Rock eighth graders the basics of launching and marketing their own businesses. Since 2016, the nonprofit has offered youth programming focused on social entrepreneurship education.
“Maybe college and higher education isn’t the path for them,” Fisher said. “It starts building that understanding of alternative paths and what goes into business skills.”
Antwon Clipps (far left), Sarah Karlson (blue shirt, middle) and Emily Fisher (far right) lead the student entrepreneurship program.
The student groups have each come up with their own business names and logos. And they’ve chosen to donate this year to the Salvation Army, UW Children’s Hospital, the Trevor Project, Briarpatch Youth Services and the Boys and Girls Club, which serves some of the students in the class.
Karlson, meanwhile, has instructed students on how to grow plants and use them in a variety of recipes from different cultures. She’s also guided them in tending to the plants they’ll eventually sell as part of their kits.
On a recent class day, some of the students told the Cap Times that they now have the tools to run their own future companies.
“We can make money, but also for a good cause,” said Carlos Rodriguez, one of the students on the soap kit team named Badger Rock Essence. “It’s really showing how students can be entrepreneurs and just really do anything that they want.”
Kayla Huynh joined the Cap Times in 2021 and covers K-12 education after three years of reporting on higher education. She graduated from Northwestern University with a master’s degree in journalism after attending UW-Madison.
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