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Take a Look At. . . Service Learning
MAIN CIRCLE
SPOTLIGHT ON SERVICE LEARNING & SCIENCE....by Robin, Eliza, Danielle,
& Scott
Once again, the Main Circle has embarked on a partnership with
Red Hill Farm, a community supported agriculture project located in nearby Aston.
The goals of the partnership are for the children to learn:
- Basic gardening skills, such as planting, harvesting, weeding, etc.
- Organic gardening techniques, such as crop rotation, natural pest reduction, etc., and
- Principles of community supported agriculture as distinct from conventional agriculture
Community supported agriculture (CSA) is a worldwide movement to support organic food production for local communities. Unlike conventional agriculture, where the individual or corporate farmer shoulders all the risk and pockets any profit, CSA operates under a cooperative structure with shared risk. CSA members pay for their portion of the farm’s harvest up-front, which covers the cost of the production and guarantees a decent salary for the farmers. Members then pick up their portion of the food every week of the growing season and enjoy the bounty of healthy, locally-produced vegetables.
In the case of Red Hill Farm, the CSA is sponsored by the Sisters of St. Francis
and is part of a larger environmental initiative that has also placed the farm’s
acreage in a land trust, thereby protecting it permanently from development.
Several SRV staff members and families are members of Red Hill Farm, which is
how our partnership originally formed three years ago—and the relationship
has been growing ever since!
This year, the Main Circle groups have been going to the Farm every week. The kids do real work on the farm, such as taking down the now-dying tomato plants and cleaning up the garden rows as the farm’s growing season begins to wind down. The experience is simple, yet profound. Most children never see rotting tomatoes, because at the supermarket, our food is sanitized and beautified. Seeing, feeling, and smelling the life cycle of a tomato plant reminds us about where our food really comes from, and even more basically, reveals the cycles of life and death. In addition, even just 45 minutes of volunteer farm work inspires new respect for those who labor every day growing most of our food, people who are largely invisible to suburban families in America. There is a light side to the Red Hill Farms visits, too! Danielle’s group discovered the joy of peppers in their most recent trip, and the children learned about and sampled some of the wide variety of peppers—hot and sweet—grown at Red Hill.
This partnership is evolving over time, and our aim is to have it integrated
into the science curriculum through the focus on environmental sustainability.
We also hope to forge 
connections
within the social studies curriculum, as children explore the real life challenges
of growing food and compare them to the farming experiences of people who came
before us. In an age when many people are alienated from the sources of their
sustenance, this partnership is an opportunity for the children to connect to
the earth and to develop respect for the real work of growing food.
Robin, Eliza, Danielle, & Scott
Past "Take a Look At..." articles
