Growing a Farm School Program

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Growing a Farm School Program

• Evolving, individualized project-based education
  connecting students with sustainable agriculture
  and the natural world.

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Who are we?
Jean Polovchik Farm Program Educator
Beth Simpson Farm Program Coordinator

• And how did we get here?

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In 2003, Crotched Mountain opened Sunnyfield Farm
and students began to visit.
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Gradually, more students enjoyed work experience
at Sunnyfield.
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In the Fall of 2008,

• Development of a Farm School Education program
  began.

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Lessons planned to follow the seasons.

• Fall Harvest-September/October/November
• Conifers-December
• Sheep to Felting-January/February
• Maple Sugaring-March/April
• Eggs and Planting-May/ June
• Gardening, Bugs and Farm Chores- July/August
• Cows (still in development)

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Four Basic Program Models

• Life Skills Learning
• General Education
• On-Mountain Classroom Activities
• Individualized High-School Projects

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Building Cross-over Relationships

• Developing Experiential Learning Sites On and
  Off-Campus

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Sunnyfield Farm

• Our primary partner!
• Sunnyfield is a working farm that manages the
  landscape in accordance with organic and
  biodynamic principles to provide broad mutual
  support to diverse human and natural communities.
• Ruth and Dan Holmes are our farm managers.

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Sunnyfields Key Values provide a focus for farm
program lessons.

• Food Production- Sunnyfield Farm cares for its
  plants and animals with three inseparable
  commitments
• 1) to improve food value
• 2) to insure a healthy and humane life for the
  animals and
• 3) to constantly improve the health of our land
  and soil.

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• Education- Sunnyfield Farm begins as an
  educational resource simply by practicing rural
  land use that is environmentally, economically
  and culturally sustainable.
• Moreover, it provides a unique opportunity for
  children and adults, without regard to
  differences, to find education, life-sharing
  and work opportunity in sustainable agriculture
  and forestry.
• Schoolchildren, adults, educators and families,
  many with disabilities, come here to learn, work
  and build community connections.

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During fall harvest we learned that potatoes grow
underground, pumpkins and squash grow on vines,
and there are good and bad bugs in a garden.
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We repaired raised beds, supplemented the soil
with organic compost and planted spinach and
arugula.
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Students learn that like plants, all animals need
food and water.
Helping to care for chickens teaches
responsibility and builds a sense of
accomplishment.
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Food Chains
The Suns energy helps to feed the apples.
Pigs eat apples!
Pigs become bacon, and pork chops, and
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Conifers, matching colors from nature to a color
chart, and using natures dyes on cloth
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Sheep to Felting

• Our unit began with a visit to Sunnyfield to see
  the sheep and pick up wool.
• John carries a bag of wool back to our van.
• Charlie enjoys a special greeting from Dante the
  Maremma guard dog.

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Wool fresh from the sheep, first gets grasses and
debris picked out. Next it is placed in a
laundry bag, to soak then is dried on racks.
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The clean wool is then carded, or combed to align
all the fibers in one direction. Here, students
try both hand carding and using a machine called
a drum carder.
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Carded wool comes off the drum carder in a form
that is called a bat.
To make a basic felting project, Bats of wool are
layered, then soaked with warm soapy water and
rubbed long and hard until it becomes felted!
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Students learned that workable fibers can come
from other animals besides sheep. We met Rosie
the Rabbit, whose angora fur can be harvested by
brushing, and visited a local Alpaca farm .
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We hosted a school-wide special event during our
wool unit. Duck herding in the gym by Ruth and
Jack the Border Collie was a huge hit!
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Maple Sugaring

• As winter fades into spring, the sap begins to
  run.
• Sugaring season means a lot of work!
• Students from the farm program, science classes
  and Earth Connections class all pitch in to help.
  

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How to tap a Maple Tree
First, drill a hole in the tree trunk, Buddy
demonstrates the use of an electric drill and a
hand powered bit brace. Next, hammer the tap into
the hole, then hang the bucket and hear the
dripping begin!
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Check the buckets.
Pour sap into cooler.
Carry sap out of woods.
Haul sap to the sugar house
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We hung buckets on about 30 trees, and after
boiling it all down to syrup, hosted a sugaring
off party to end the season.
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Eggs and Planting

• Spring in the farm program found us busy planting
  gardens.
• On-mountain we combined efforts to plant raised
  beds with the Cornucopia Project.
• At Sunnyfield, we planted an heirloom display
  garden, transplanted sunflowers, and made flower
  planters.

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Dig in the dirt!
Get your hands dirty!
Water can be lots of fun!
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• Also in the spring we hatched eggs using
  Sunnyfields incubator.
• We did the first batch at the farm and then
  brought the incubator to our classroom for
  another hatch.
• This little one is a turkey!

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Our On-mountain hatch day was a big hit! We
offered it as a stay at school field trip and all
together about 10 classes participated. It was
fun to see the chicks hatching and to hear them
pecking from inside the shell. We hatched 5
turkeys and 2 chickens.
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Meet Dorry and Mindy. They are both Dorking
chickens, a heritage breed. They were the first
to hatch in our classroom, and with their arrival
began our next big project, to bring chickens to
the mountain!
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Welcome Fort Cluck!
Sunnyfield got us started by building and
delivering the frame.
Students and staff worked together to do the
finish work.
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Sunnyfield then gave us 4 grown hens ready to
lay, and we planned to keep Dorry and Mindy to
bring our on-mountain flock to a total of 6.
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Joan is working for High School credit exploring
farming and working with animals as a potential
career. She has explored a variety of aspects of
farming from cleaning barns to writing about the
complexities of organic farming. She also
interacts with a variety of community members.

See an example of her work on the next slide.
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Some of Joans cartoons for the farm program.
This is an Informational Bulletin about
Sustainable Agriculture. Sunnyfield has it
available for their customers in the farm store
along with other flyers.
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Summer 2009As we start the new school year we
continue with on-going activities and begin new
ones such as a field trip option.
Students benefit from experiential trips with the
farm program. Here Caitlin and Becca take a tour
of Sunnyfield to see the animals. Trips can be
planned for individual classroom interests or may
be offered for topic specific opportunities.
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Elliot visited the farm to try potato digging,
while digging he found this really cool worm!
After some work, Elliot visited the animals, here
he gives Rufus a big hello!
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Nate and Hugh have begun field trips to the farm
for science credits, they are planning a video
project about Sunnyfields Grass Fed Beef
Nate talks with Ruth about why grass is a better
food for cows than grains.
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Zach and Stephanie have begun coming to the farm
to explore vocational opportunities.
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On-Mountain Classroom Activities
Shown here learning about gardening, bugs and
digging potatoes. Currently two classrooms work
with us on a bi-weekly basis.
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Learning Farm Chores
Our Tuesday morning work crew.
Learning to move grain from the barn to the
chicken coop using teamwork.
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Gardening projects continue throughout the
summer.
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Enjoying the fruits of our labor. A beautiful
pumpkin patch. lovely tall sunflowers, heirloom
vegetables and some mighty big spuds! Students
followed these projects start to finish.
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Plans for the future?

• We welcome your thoughts and ideas, come by and
  visit!