Sustainability Farm School
The Farm has many ways to provide incredible learning opportunities for all grade levels!
The Sustainability Farm School (SFS) is a project of The Farm at SOU. It hosts students, teachers and families to enjoy and learn from the activities on The Farm. SFS offers cutting edge Sustainability Education programming to schools, teachers and other professionals interested in advancing sustainability literacy.
Environmental Education Graduate Program:
SFS is a partnership project with the SOU Environmental Education Master’s Degree program. Students in this program serve as lead teachers and curriculum designers on The Farm.
The Sustainability Farm School has two major focuses for the programming:
The Farm Experience:
Want your students to have a first time experience on The Farm? The two to three hour Farm Experience introduces students to sustainability, healthy eating, ecological principles all on a working farm. Teachers can choose from a variety of lessons which will be taught by SOU students.
Farm by Design:
Have a project you and your students want to pursue? Teachers and their students can create their own projects to carry out on the Farm. Project proposals are submitted to the Farm director at for approval. The Farm staff can help put your projects into motion.
Nonprofit Partnerships
Rogue Valley Farm to School and ScienceWorks, local nonprofit organizations, offer partnership programs with The Farm at SOU. Schools groups from the Rogue Valley come to the farm for farm education programs taught by partners and student farmers.
Composting
Two Environmental Science and Policy majors, Clare and Fletcher, took on their capstone class this year and partnered up to create an engaging project for the community.
Clare grew up in a small town in Oregon where her passion for sustainability was planted. Her exposure to such environmentally friendly practices, when she was younger, has had long-lasting benefits as she steps foot into her life after college.
Fletcher is native to the state of Alaska where he used composting in his own family garden. He says composting was used as an “important tool” in his family’s garden during the Alaskan summers, “…as long as you keep the bears away.” There is more to composting than he had previously realized. Carbon footprints can be reduced while at the same time increasing one’s overall sustainability.
Clare and Fletcher really hope that the site they created will be a great instructional resource for those hoping to start their own at home vermicomposted gardens and much more!
