A public program is an opportunity to experience a specific theme through cultural, artistic, and educational activities, engaging with diverse knowledge perspectives. 

Between January and May 2022, "If I Dug My Feet into the Earth: Relationships Between Humans and Plants" a MUPA experimental project, invited the visiting public to learn, understand, listen, and deeply experience that which was being presented, debated, or created, provoking a transformative intellectual, emotional, and cultural impact.

This experience was crucial for the museum’s commitment to guiding the public on a journey through the ancestral, scientific, and artistic knowledge that shapes the fabric of the connections between human beings and plants. 

The theme was presented from multiple perspectives, encompassing knowledge related to natural healing through teas and ointments, as well as preparations made by traditional healers from the western region of Paraná, Brazil. The exhibition reflected on the use and significance of medicinal herbs in Afro-Brazilian religions, as well as the importance of intercontinental flows for the dissemination and domestication of plants.

The activities of this public program involved participants from national and international backgrounds, including indigenous collectives, artists, researchers in the fields of Botany, Anthropology, Archaeology, and History, as well as masters and keepers of knowledge and practices from traditional communities such as "quilombolas", "faxinalenses", and "caiçaras". Writers, architects, cooks, and local producers connected to agroecology were also involved. 

Roundtable discussions, lectures, spatial interventions, and workshops provided the public with opportunities to experience nature-culture relationships, emphasizing the importance of the intangible, of memory and  the knowledge and practices manifested in territoriality.

The Educational Center also participated in the public program. Its activities included planting and harvesting in a garden, activating emotional memories about plants in our lives and our spaces, and even culinary preparations such as brewing herbal teas. For children, the workshop “Pollinating Relationships: Bees and Gardens” provided an opportunity to learn about the stingless native bees from Paraná, which have been living in the museum's garden since 2019, when the exhibit “Ephemerous/Perpetual” took place. 

During the activity, participants learned about bees and pollination through a storytelling session with illustrated stories, followed by an exploration of the garden. The last step was to color illustrations of the four bee species that live at the MUPA: Jataí, Tubuna, Mandaçaia, and Manduri.