The urban farming course at Madison High School isn't just about playing in the garden.

To hear students tell it, it’s about being outside. It’s about escaping the monotony of a classroom. And educators say it’s also about learning skills teens can apply in the real world.

The class, which started this year, is part of a nationwide push to give students career and technical education skills. Across the country, CTE has become a buzzy acronym meant to signal innovation and connections to industries.

But sometimes, courses like urban farming can simply be a way of keeping kids engaged by letting them get their hands dirty.

"I just think it really helps students' self-esteem and gives them a lot of worth," said Susan Wiencke, the urban farming and sustainable agriculture teacher at Madison High School. "They can do something. They have a skill that means something."

Career and technical education

Armed with a tool belt filled with Sharpies, pencils, pruners and a weeding knife, Wiencke led her classes outside this week to take advantage of 63-degree weather.

Throughout the afternoon, students worked on gathering kale and cutting up compost. They watered plants, including kale, onions, peas, and leeks in the 19 raised beds they helped create and plant.

Near the garden’s chain-link fence, Shatoya Allen worked on the bed she planted in the fall. Dressed in jean shorts and a grey crocheted sweater, Allen pointed out the peas and the three different kinds of kale she helped plant.

“It’s a lot of work,” she said, “but I think it’s worth it.”

Later, the 17-year-old asked whether she would be able to make kale chips to share with her classmates. She learned the recipe in the farming class.

Wiencke’s class joins about 108 other agriculture career programs from the state, but it also stands out.

Typically, the state-approved agricultural program classes are in rural areas. But more and more suburban and urban districts including Portland, North Clackamas, Hillsboro and Sherwood have started their own courses.

Reynold Gardner, the agriculture and natural resource education specialist for the Oregon Department of Education, said he's eager to see more urban districts taking on the subject.

“It’s providing students the connections with their food and an understanding of the nutritional and entrepreneurial aspects of the agriculture industry,” he said.

In Wiencke’s class, the entrepreneurial skills are as important as the gardening aspect. By the end of the year, the school will be conducting its own plant sale.

The proceeds will help fund the program, which is partly paid for by about $2,000 in career and technical education grants from the federal government.

Connections to food

Wiencke, who volunteered as the school’s garden coordinator for three years, ran a gardening and landscaping business called Black-Eyed Susan for six years before selling it in 2012. She began teaching this year, taking on the sustainable agriculture class and piloting the urban farming course.

With her glasses and edgy haircut, Wiencke admits she can fit the Portlandia stereotype that may accompany a term like “urban farming.”

But she says students in her program don’t necessarily fit that image.

About two-thirds of Madison students are in families with incomes low enough to qualify for free and reduced-price lunch.

The school is also in an area that has fewer options for fresh food. Students have easier access to chains like McDonald’s and Taco Bell.

"A lot of students here don't live in close proximity to a big grocery store where they can buy good produce at cheap prices," Wiencke said. “Many of their parents don’t shop at New Seasons.”

Wiencke said she doesn’t expect to cultivate master gardeners.

Instead, she takes satisfaction hearing of students who use recipes they learned in class or planting gardens at home. A student once took her by surprise when he spouted out information about the three nutrients that make up fertilizer during a field trip.

They may not want to grow up to follow in her footsteps, but she likes to know they’re learning.

-- Nicole Dungca

Follow @ndungca