Greenhouse Forensics

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The Greenhouse Forensics League is intended to provide speech and debate services to students who do not have the opportunity to participate in Speech & Debate activities. Programming for the Greenhouse Forensics League occurs in day and after school programs in St. Louis City and St. Louis County, as well as online for competitors outside of the St. Louis region. 

GCI staff and volunteers facilitate the learning, mentoring, and competition portions of the programming. Our clients provide the facilities, except for our main location in the Cortex Innovation Community. Participants are grades K-12th and are divided into four levels of learning(L1-L4) as well as Rookie, Junior Varsity, and Varsity Elite levels for competitions. 

Programming is offered to schools and youth organizations during the day, after school, and Saturdays.    

Most of our participants perform below their grade level in English Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, and Science. Our critical and engaging pedagogy provides a best practice pathway to improving academic outcomes by challenging the participant to “read the world by reading the word”. The learning needs of our participants are improved in a proven model that emphasizes the participant first. Placing the student’s voice and needs first leads to commitment, increased confidence, and eventually competency for the participant. 

Our learners respond in a ways traditional institutions have failed to uncover within them and apply the moral and academic lessons learned in the program to everyday life. Successful participants complete their short-term educational goals and achieve long term identity changes that lead to improved moral and ethical imperatives that directly benefit the participant and our community. We provide employment, internships, and referrals for our participants to immediately apply their recent learning and leadership development.

This year’s competitions will only be offered to our participants, next year (Fall 2023) we will allow a select number of competitors from the National Speech & Debate Association’s Missouri chapter and others to compete at our sponsored tournaments. Competitions are Round Robin style, taking place during the week and culminating on a Friday or Saturday. Swing/Championship style tournaments occur on Friday evenings and all-day Saturdays. Round Robin tournaments are for intraschool competitions, Swing Tournaments are for regionally sponsored Greenhouse teams, and Championships combine all of our competing locations in a Spring Finale. Winners receive trophies, leadership advancement opportunities, and cash. 

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The GCI curriculum is focused on facilitating a critical and engaging pedagogy for our clients. Student activities are based on over 50 Greenhouse Power Standards and anchored by numerous Missouri Learning Standards for English Language Arts, Social Studies, Theater, and Math. Our activites focus on writing, argumentation and debate, leadership, oral interpretation (acting), limited prep speaking, leadership, public address speaking, entrepreneurship, and community organizing. Partnering organizations may lease the Greenhouse Curriculum, designed for years of participation, elementary through high school.