Although fall soon will turn to winter, an entire garden is springing up in Washington Heights, where the Community Health Academy of the Heights and lead partner Community League of the Heights officially launched their garden project on Oct. 25. CHAH, one of the UFT’s 16 Community Learning Schools, and CLOTH, a local community-based organization and the school’s founding entity, took on the task of transforming an out-of-repair garden by the school into a lush garden that will be open for use by students, their parents and teachers, and the entire surrounding community. The space will also contain a greenhouse, which will be used to grow vegetables and other plants. The idea, according to Community Learning Schools Initiative Director of Policy Christine Schuch, is to create a shared space that students can use as a green space and an outdoor classroom for science experimentation and that community residents can use for events during non-school hours. It’s also meant to strengthen ties between the school and its neighbors, according to CHAH’s school-based resource coordinator, Erin Verrier, who emphasized that they will have to work together to keep the garden alive when students are gone for the summer. The space will also be used to support existing community programming at the school, like its healthy cooking class for families, and to host a wide array of workshops for the community on subjects as varied as health insurance and Internet safety, Verrier said. But a lot of what happens in the garden — what’s grown and how it’s used — will be up to the students to decide. “It’s all about giving them ownership and a tangible learning experience, allowing students to plant their own seeds in their education,” Verrier said.