Students FEAST on new Opportunities at Shelburne Farms

By Ada Mahood

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Last week Mrs B and Kat Robbins brought six CRAFT students up to Shelburne Farms in Burlington. The CRAFT students were participating in the student led summit FEAST, Food Education And Sustainable Thinking. Upon arriving, students listened to a sustainable leader, Grace Oedel. Grace Oedel is the Executive Director of NOFA Vermont (Northeast Organic Farming Association) She said some really thoughtful and meaningful things about sustainability and farming. She herself actually grew up away from farm life in Georgia. “Once we get food and farming right, we can get so much more right.” After the students heard from Grace Oedel, they went onto their first morning workshop for 55 minutes. Some students made tortillas and crafted their own tacos, others learned how to mend clothing and Woodstock students Chelsea McDermott and Sadie Boulbol led a workshop on how to grow microgreens and make microgreen pesto! Then the students transitioned to another workshop based off of sustainability. Some of the afternoon activities were, Food Cultures around the world, foraging for wild foods and many others! Lastly, we shared a delicious lunch and talked amongst ourselves throughout the different schools and listened to a closing message by one of our amazing Woodstok students who was a program coordinator, Priscilla Richardson! Overall, it was a great learning experience and super fun to try out so many cool sustainability workshops!

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The CRAFT/Agriculture Program is hiring two student interns to help with the school gardens and greenhouses this summer. This will be a great opportunity to learn more about farming, gardening, and project management while making some extra money. See the application for more information. Fill out the application (make your own copy of it) and return to Abbie Castriotta (abbie.castriotta@mtnview.org) via email or paper copy. Questions? Email Abbie or stop by the Agriculture Room.

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Kody Latiegne, Riley O'Neal, and Joaquin Jones-Welker witnessed a potentially historic vote from the seats of the Vermont Senate Chambers as the Senate voted 21-5 to advance a bill that would establish a Climate Superfund that Vermonters could use to pay for natural disasters caused by climate change by taxing major fossil fuel producers. These CRAFT students were at the statehouse with 40 students from five other schools as part of a Youth Lobby day. Students observed the opening portion of the House session, stood in solidarity with student speakers at a press conference, and then met with Representative Buss and Senator White to discuss proposed amendments to the Renewable Energy Standard. The day was empowering and energizing, as indicated by Kody: "I learned that I can actually make a potential difference in how a bill is worded just by calling and asking questions."

Last week, Woodstock Union High School’s CRAFT Program welcomed 5 exchange students from Ingolstadt, Germany visiting for the 2nd leg of the very first CRAFT exchange. For some, it was their first time ever in the US, for all it was their first time in Vermont. A few of them had already embarked on journeys to Boston or New York City, but they found life in Vermont starkly different to life in the city. For a week they stayed with their host families and got to learn the ins and outs of the town and the state!

For some background, a few weeks ago five of our very own CRAFT students went to their school in Ingolstadt, Germany to learn about their culture and what the agricultural aspect of their country is. They stayed with their host family in Germany and our students hosted them here. Some of them grew up watching American pop culture television or even listening to American music. While doing so, they built up stereotypes about the country in their heads, most acknowledging that when they came to Vermont those stereotypes evaporated and were proven wrong. One of the biggest stereotypes that they all agreed upon was the food. “There is a German stereotype about the US that we only eat burgers and fries and fast food.” noted by Elisa. She had been to Boston recently and ate quite a bit of fast food because it was cheaper. Here she talked about how it was different because of all of the access to vegetables and fresh produce. There isn't a lot of that in Boston.

Along with the fresh fruits and vegetables, another aspect of Vermont that they got to enjoy and something it’s kind of known for, is nature. They live in a city of 150,000 people in Germany and here in Vermont we take nature for granted sometimes. Elisa commented on how fresh the air was here, and the privacy aspect as well. When speaking on the essence of Vermont they all agreed that it had a really “romantic feeling to it.”

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All of them really liked the lifestyle that we live here as Vermonters. In the city there's a lot of hustle and bustle and here it's very calming, peaceful and “real nature.” Of course you can't forget the cute houses too!

This week the German exchange students got to experience nature first hand. Some of their activities for the week were skiing at Killington , exploring the national park and Billings Farm in town and seeing firsthand where our food comes from. They visited Vermont Farmstead Cheese and got to make some of their own cheese. They got to go to the King Farm and the Richardson farm to participate in the quintessential/classic Vermont experience of sugaring! Last but definitely not least, they got to plant some seeds in the wonderful greenhouses here at the high school!

Regarding some of their experiences in nature, Patrick said, “Nature for me personally, was the best part, skiing in the mountains was awesome.” Most of the exchange students hadn’t been skiing before so they were really excited about being able to try something new in the beautiful mountains of Vermont.

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When inquired about why they wanted to come on the trip, they spoke on the fact that learning about new cultures was incredibly important to them. Patrick commented that every time he learns about a new culture it adds more to his own beliefs and his own perspectives on life. Amelie agreed and remarked on talking to someone who's really familiar with the town, she really enjoys being around people who know the town well and the culture.

Something that really struck me that they said was about how we get used to our surroundings so easily. Them being from a city, they appreciated the nature here much more than you and I do on a daily basis. “You don’t realize what you have because you see it every day.” (Amelie).

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Overall, our students and the German students had an amazing experience and got to learn a lot from each other and their countries! It is super exciting being able to connect with someone from another country and everyone had such a good time. Thank you to all the teachers, parents and students who made the German students feel welcome!!

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CRAFT students have learned a lot about enduring unpredictability this maple sugaring season. Food and Forest Systems and Stewardship Action Project students installed 32 taps and collected over 230 gallons of sap, but only produced 4.5 gallons of Amber Rich syrup, as the sugar content was super low this year, hovering between 1-1.5%. Our season ended two weeks earlier than usual. However, students still had a great time learning about density, grading, filtering, wood splitting, sugar content and weather. Our school was one of 13 participating in a state-wide pilot project around data collection during the sugaring season.

On Tuesday, November 14, 2023 we hosted visitors from the Bavarian region of Germany to set up an exchange between our CRAFT students and their English language students.

The exchange will take place next March with a focus on sharing our cultural and historical context of food and forest systems in each others' regions. Our newly formed partnership with the FOSBOS school in Ingolstadt, Germany will continue to expand our international learning experiences.

Colleen O'Connell has been pivotal in this work and has helped to cultivate this partnership. Mr. Smail thought CRAFT students were the perfect fit for this type of exchange. The teachers from Germany participated in our CRAFT professional learning at the national park and got to enjoy many delicious pizzas hand crafted by our teachers.

Students in our CRAFT classes helped prepare a local lunch for them at school and they enjoyed sitting in on a wide range of classes. CRAFT students spent their lunch and are time sharing their experiences and learning about what they might get to do when they go to Germany!

Thanks to all who hosted our German friends and made them feel at home here in our school. We look forward to visiting their region of the world and having them stay here with us.

Sophomores and Juniors in CRAFT spent Friday, November 17, 2023 at Sterling College learning about this small, unique school in Craftsbury, Vt. They took a campus tour, ate in the dining hall and got to sit in on college level forest ecology and animal husbandry classes.

Students also learned about the fiber arts classes by naturally dyeing yarn that was made from their sheep and colored with locally grown and harvested plants. Students explored the outdoor education component by scaling great heights on the campus climbing wall even after the sun went down.

They then traveled to the Northwoods Stewardship Center in Island Pond for an overnight. In the morning they shared breakfast together, reviewed their newly created CRAFT portfolio and hiked an interpretative forest trail.

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CRAFT classes have been busy! MS students in Gardens and Greenhouses chose a local fruit or veggie to learn about for their final project and then they made a dish with that ingredient to share with the class. In a picture above, Nolan Alberty is proudly displaying his homemade apple pie.

Students in Stewardship Action Project recently worked with Sustainable Woodstock to make window inserts for homeowners. Our SAP students were essential in stretching the plastic over the wooden frame to create the insulating layer that will help the community stay warm this winter and reduce their heating costs.

Students in Foundations of Agriculture are finishing up our fall garden preparation by planting garlic. They have been learning about the value of seeds as an investment in our future. We purchased $100.00 worth of garlic and if each clove turns into 10 cloves, we now have $1000.00 worth of garlic to eat, share and replant!

Students in Food and Forest Systems went to Marsh Billings Rockefeller NHP to learn about the more sustainable tradition of horse logging and the forest management practices employed by the natural resources team at the park. Students got to watch at a safe distance while an ash tree was felled as a precaution to the emerald ash borer which has begun to show its presence in our forests. This foreign pest will have a devastating effect on our ash trees in the coming years and the park wants to be proactive by removing the ones that could pose a danger along the hiking trails.

Seven educators, 3 students and 1 school board member attended the Rowland Conference at UVM this week. Students Josie Cross, Edwin Lynds, and Eleanor Williams spoke eloquently about their experience in the CRAFT program, shared microgreens from their CSA with their 50 person audience, and encouraged other schools to imagine how they might create a focused pathway of courses and experiences using their local resources and interests. We also thoroughly enjoyed listening to the keynote speaker Ross Gay, and engaging with other educators on topics ranging from rethinking the five paragraph essay to reimagining advisory programming to infusing more joy into school.