The Fairchild Challenge: An Environmental Education Program based on a Botanic Garden

Develop an environmental education pipeline that runs from elementary to graduate education. Students who join the Fairchild Challenge will know that, through FIU, they can continue their post-secondary training with unique opportunities in tropical biology and wetland ecology not found in other higher education institutions.

The Fairchild Challenge is an environmental education program based at the Fairchild Tropical Botanical Gardens (FTBG). The Fairchild Challenge program targets elementary and secondary students from the Miami area offering a menu of separate, but parallel, multidisciplinary challenges for elementary, middle, and high schools, attracting students of diverse interests, abilities, talents and backgrounds.

  • Focus: K-12: Elementary and middle school
  • Contact: Dr. Javier Francisco-Ortega, ortegaj@fiu.edu, Department of Biological Sciences, College of Arts & Sciences