The Open Space Authority helped fund Joseph George Middle School's Learning Lab/Community Garden, which promotes environmental education by expanding on an existing campus garden. Through apprenticeships, outside classroom lessons and community meetings, students, teachers and parents in the school's community are becoming more aware of environmental and land use issues. The project aimed to improve student academic outcomes, increase knowledge and awareness of gardening and the environment for all involved constituencies, beautify the school campus and the neighborhood and introduce freshly-grown produce into the diets of several families who currently live in a park-poor neighborhood within a food desert section of San José.