(November 2013) In May, students from the Anschutz Medical Campus joined with officials from Aurora Public Schools to open a community garden at the North Middle School in Aurora. With 22 plots reserved for community members and eight reserved for students, the gardens are part of a new curriculum for the school’s health sciences and science courses. 

“The garden gets the students more in touch with nature and physically active,” Michele M. Doucette, an assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine, tells The Denver Post. 

“We’ve also found that these gardens build bridges between members of the community.”

The gardens were proposed by students from the Anschutz Medical Campus organization called BRANCH: Bridging Research and Aurora Neighborhoods for Community Health. 

The garden was made possible with funding from The Piton Foundation and a partnership between Aurora Public Schools, Denver Urban Gardens and the School of Medicine Department of Family Medicine.