Farm and Field Day Returns to NewBrook Elementary School!

After a break forced by the COVID-19 pandemic, NewBrook Elementary School was able to host Farm and Field Day for the first time since 2019. The entire student body took a break from academics to spend an afternoon outdoors learning about food, recycling, and the natural environment.  

A multitude of community volunteers came out to run “stations”—where groups of students rotated through. The Windham County Game Warden, Dave Taddei, had a table full of pelts for students to explore and learn about. Giant Journey Farm brought adult rabbits and kits. Meadows Bee Farm had a faux milking station and taught students about June’s Harvest of the Month dairy. Food Connects made strawberry banana “nice cream” (sweetened only with fruit), and students assembled and ate their own pizzas, cooked by a West River Community Project volunteer. Amy Duffy, the school’s Farm to School Coordinator, made herbal salt scrubs with students. And the team from Windham Solid Waste ran a recycling relay! Art teacher Suzanne Paugh engaged students in making a mural for the garden shed out of recycled plastic!

Parents Elizabeth Erickson and Sara Webb, working with NewBrook’s Farm to School Committee, led the efforts to organize the event. Heather Sperling, the school’s wood-fired pizza expert and Farm to School veteran, and Amy Duffy, the school’s FTS Coordinator, were also central to the effort. Thank you so much to all the community members and families who volunteered to help with this event. Principal Scotty Tabachnick said, “it was just beautiful to see everyone outside, enjoying the day as a community again. We’re so thankful to everyone who supports our school.”

It was a wonderful day for all, and NewBrook Elementary School looks forward to hosting more events for students and families.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield Mini-Grants Support FTS Programming in Area Schools

Several area schools, including Academy School, Towsend Elementary, and Newbrook Elementary, were awarded grants by the Windham County Community Advisory Board of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont. This is a volunteer board of dedicated Windham County residents who are local champions of healthy activity and programming of all kinds. Several proposals were submitted for this round of funding to strengthen Farm to School (FTS) programming, and Food Connects is thrilled to celebrate this vital support for FTS-related wellness projects in some of our member schools!

At Academy School, 4th-6th grade classes are excited to receive funding to purchase a grow lab and humidity tent that they will use to grow plants for their garden beds. The grow lab will provide approximately 180 students the opportunity to become more involved in starting seeds in their classrooms. The seedlings grown will stock their school garden beds with vegetables, herbs, and flowers that can be used for cooking activities in their classrooms.

Townshend Elementary School launched a brand new FTS program in March. This grant will provide vital funding for purchasing ingredients and materials for Harvest of the Month taste tests and seed money for starting a small garden at the school. Taste tests are being given in each school classroom, reaching all 110 students. Students enjoyed the first Harvest of the Month activity in March, which focused on maple syrup. Teachers have already utilized funds from the grant to purchase a variety of whole grains for students to see, touch, and make art with, as well as some whole-grain bread and plain, refined flour white bread for April’s taste test. Garden planning is underway!

Just down the road at Newbrook Elementary School, the grant will fund multiple FTS-related projects. A woodfired pizza oven is central to Newbrook’s school culture and FTS program. This grant will fund the purchase of firewood to fuel the oven for six months and ingredients for pizza dough and sauce. The FTS team is also building two new raised beds next to the pizza oven so that students will be able to enjoy or work in the garden during recess time, if they choose, and will be able to harvest herbs and pizza toppings moments before their pie goes in the oven! The remainder of the grant will be used to restock the school’s cooking cart so that Amy Duffy, the school’s Garden Coordinator and FTS Educator, can continue to cook with students during her weekly visits to each classroom.

Many thanks to the Windham County Community Advisory Board of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont for supplying these grants and providing essential funding for activities and green spaces at our local schools.

Scaffolding Sustainability Education in the Classroom: NewBrook’s Ladder of Responsibility

How can we teach about large-scale problems—such as climate change—without discouraging students? This question vexes many educators as climate change and sustainability become a more integral part of classroom curriculums. Climate change is a big problem, and our initial instinct may be to lay out all the facts and urgency to our students. Not so fast though, if we only arm our students with the knowledge without also building their capacity to act, we may be discouraging future positive actions to address these important problems.

David Sobel, Director of Certificate Programs at Antioch University New England, has a solution to this dilemma—what he calls a Ladder of Environmental Responsibility. The purpose of this tool is to provide students with concrete tasks which demonstrate that their behaviors can have a positive impact on the environment. These tasks should gradually become more difficult as students move through the grades, be tied in with the existing curriculum, and provide students with nature experiences that help connect them to the environment.

As a part of a recent grant from the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets, Newbrook Elementary’s faculty came together last year to design their own Ladder of Responsibility. They were able to take the principles laid out by Sobel and adapt them to the specific context of their school. Now, Sam Kilmurray, NewBrook’s Garden Educator, is using the ladder as a framework for her Farm to School education. 

In addition to a host of shared tasks, there is now a specific track for students as they move from grade-to-grade. For example, Kindergarten is in charge of the pollinator garden, second grade learns about medinicial gardening, and fifth graders are the school’s waste stewards. Not only does this scaffold environmental education for students, but it can also help teachers incorporate Farm to School education—which for some may feel intimidatingly broad—into their classroom curriculum by providing a defined list of tasks for students to participate in. 

The Ladder of Environmental Responsibility can easily be adapted to fit within your school’s Farm to School program, provide clarity to your curriculum, and—most importantly—help students grow into empowered environmental stewards. If you’re looking for help to develop a Ladder of Environmental Responsibility for your school, feel free to contact Conor, conor@foodconnects.org. 

Student investigates the classroom worm bin. There are six bins in classrooms throughout the school which are a part of the 5th grader’s waste stewardship responsibilities.

West River Education District Hires Garden Coordinator

Leland & Gray Union Middle & High School and NewBrook School have combined forces to hire local farmer and educator, Sam Kilmurray, to coordinate garden activities for students at both schools this spring. Modeled after similar programming in Guilford and Brattleboro, Sam will work with classroom teachers to get even more students working in the garden. She is excited to involve students in planting, maintaining, and harvesting spring crops and will coordinate with teachers to reinforce classroom concepts whenever possible. Co-owner of Amazing Planet Farm in Williamsville, VT, Sam has immense experience in farming. Having participated in the Four Winds program over the past 3 years, Sam is also an experienced outdoor educator and enjoys teaching students new and useful skills for understanding the world around them. This position is generously funded by the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets, Food Connects, and WRED Medicaid funding.