Outdoor Education/ Gardening

Garden Teacher: Kyra Dorado Teigen Link to this section

Kyra Dorado Teigen (she/they) is an educator and artist born and raised in the Bay Area (Huchiun and Yelamu). As an educator, Kyra brings experience empowering youth in San Francisco public schools, including supporting students in special education and teaching ethnic studies after school through Pin@y Educational Partnerships, as well as in nature-based education through Sama Sama, where she leads environmental justice, critical Filipinx studies, and arts programming outdoors with diasporic Filipino youth. Kyra has supported Indigenous-led native ecosystem restoration at ‘Amham Šumi-mak Muwekma (Puichon) and cultivates food justice as a volunteer at her local community farms. Kyra sees school gardens as powerful sites to strengthen community, heal the land, and build power with youth to be stewards of their environment and foodways. When she’s not teaching or gardening, you can find Kyra making music, sharing a meal with her family or housemates, and running around in the ocean.

Our school partners with Community Grows a nature-based outdoor education program.

CIS’s gardening program provides students with hands-on experience growing fruits, vegetables, and flowers while learning about science, nutrition, and environmental stewardship. Classes visit the school garden regularly to plant seeds, tend beds, observe plant lifecycles, and harvest their crops. The program encourages teamwork, curiosity, and a sense of responsibility as students care for their shared outdoor space and connect classroom learning to the natural world.