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Once they got outside and got to take part in real life, the students were just blown away. -- Leon Walls, UVM Professor of Education Here at the Farm, great teaching means hands-on instruction, real-life experiences, and inquiry-based learning. In early March, we shared this approach with 15 UVM teachers-to-be out in our sugarbush. Professor Leon Walls was as intrigued as his students: "I'm from the midwest and it was the first time I got to actually tap a maple tree." Now Professor Walls, his colleague Professor Binta Colley and Shelburne Farms are working to strengthen this partnership to help build a new generation of teachers. Contact Linda Wellings for more on our pre-service opportunities. The New York Times recently explored what makes a great teacher in the article "Building a Better Teacher," which you might find of interest.
3rd Annual Jr. Iron Chef, Sat. March 27, Champlain Valley Expo, Essex Junction, VT, 9:30am-3:30pm Sixty teams of student chefs will cook up a storm using nutritious, farm-fresh foods. Hosted by the Burlington School Food Project and VT FEED (we're a partner), Junior Iron Chef highlights local agriculture and encourages kids to make healthy eating choices. See you at the competition!
Coming to learn at Shelburne Farms always energizes and invigorates me. It rekindles my passion for what I do—teaching others to be connected to their food and the earth. -- Amy Berens, Bath, Ohio One of our passions at Shelburne Farms is helping farmers feel comfortable opening their doors to students so that children anywhere can connect to the earth and where their food comes from. Last weekend, 25 farmers from as far as California and as near as Burlington were here to gather new strategies and ideas to help turn their farms into classrooms. We lean heavily on the great activities from Project Seasons, and of course, the farmers all come with great ideas of their own to share with us. Although the weather was cool and the grounds a bit muddy, it's the best "down" time of year for farmers to travel off-farm. Here's a Burlington Free Press article about their weekend.
96 solar panels on the Farm Barn roof The new solar panels above the Children's Farmyard are an educational demonstration project. The electricity they generate will be fed into Green Mountain Power's grid, and will cover about 9% of the Farm Barn's total electricity needs. Meanwhile, as part of the Farm's overall energy strategy, we'll continue to invest in energy conservation. See photos of the installation. How does solar power work? Frankly, the process by which PV cells convert light energy into electrical energy is complicated. (We're inclined to say, "Magic happens.") At its most basic, sunlight creates opposite charges in two layers of silicon, essentially creating a battery. Want more? A good place to start is here. The project was supported by Green Mountain Power Corporation, private donors and a 50% matching grant from the Vermont Clean Energy Development Fund.
When you make your Inn breakfast reservation, then order up pancakes or french toast, you'll enjoy maple syrup from the Farm's own sugarbush! Our operation is too small to supply all the syrup for our store and mail order (for that we turn to our friends at Butternut Mountain Farm in Johnson, VT), but we serve our syrup at the Inn for breakfast. So enjoy a taste of "home." And pass the syrup, please. The Inn opens May 8 for breakfast. Call 802-985-8498 for reservations. Buzz-cutting Buckthorn We've recently been cutting and mowing invasive Buckthorn shrubs from a 2-acre, evergreen plantation. Buckthorn forms thickets that crowd or shade out native shrubs and herbs. In our case, they also degrade our Olmsted landcape. But rather than use an herbicide like Roundup--another common treatment--we'll mow several times over the next few years to fully get rid of it. The plantation will then be thinned and replanted with evergreens, and we'll move on to the next one. The Vermont Land Trust has more about buckthorn and invasive plants here. |
Dear Friend of the Farm,
Building a 
Teaching farmers to teach
The Panels are Up!
Serving up Farm Syrup
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Shelburne Farms cultivates a conservation ethic by teaching and demonstrating the stewardship of natural and agricultural resources.
We are a nonprofit environmental education center, 1,400-acre working farm, and National Historic Landmark.