Professional Development on Food, Farming, Culture & Education

A unique, placed based professional learning experience situated amidst the natural beauty and agricultural richness of the oldest and largest working landscapes on Bainbridge Island. Open to K-12 & community based educators, farmers, chefs, and others interested in developing edible education programs with local schools and farms in their community. 

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To change ideas about what land is for
is to change ideas about what anything is for.
– Aldo Leopold

The school itself shall be made a genuine form of active community life,
instead of place set apart in which to learn lessons.
– John Dewey

What happens when you pair dedicated educators together with local farmers and community leaders to explore the possibilities for teaching and learning about food and farming in our local schools and communities? Our professional development workshop  on Food, Farming, Culture and Education, explores these questions over an intensive week of learning experiences, we become learning community of educators, farmers, chefs, and community leaders building our respective and collective professional repertoire around cornucopia of food and farm related areas of study for K-12 education.

Edible education represents the vanguard of environmental and sustainability education in the 21st century. Grounded in a pedagogy that is place-based and framed a curriculum for our bioregion, we explore the pathways for practicing education for sustainability and building stronger relationships between farms, classrooms, lunchrooms, and home culture. Over the past five years, this program has become a learning laboratory for educators from across the Pacific Northwest to work on the integration of scholarship, stewardship, citizenship, and sustainability.

About the Program

Over the course of this intensive, week-long professional development, participants:

· Work with master farmers, engage in hands-on farming activities, and experience sustainable agriculture and the agrarian ideals practiced at historic Day Road Farms.

· Experience the “buy local challenge”, learn about local food source sand structures, and meet with practitioners and officials involved in regional sustainable agriculture and local food systems.

· Engage and dialogue with fellow educators, farmers, and other key stakeholders in local and regional food and farming.

· Bear witness to one local community’s efforts to develop stronger and more sustainable community and school based food streams.

· Learn about how edible education can meet core learning standards, including the recent WA State learning standards on Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE), while cultivating skills in farm stewardship and food citizenship.

· Learn how to develop an edible education program in your school or community. Learn how to build farm-school relationships, and how to use your community as curriculum for teaching and learning about food, farming and related topics of study.

· Be a part of an in-depth exploration of authentic, meaningful and comprehensive ways to bridge classroom and communities with one’s teaching and learning.

· Deepen one’s practice, and connect to people, places, projects and possibilities that enrich and enliven your teaching about issues that we, as educators, already feel responsible for in our curriculum.

· Spend time with EduCulture’s ever expanding collection of curricular resources and models for bringing farming and food to life for K-12 education.

· Harvest, taste and enjoy locally grown food and locally grown wine from Day Road Farms and other local farms!

Over five days, the course covered topics including: sustainable agriculture, community food systems, health and nutrition, culinary arts education, rethinking school lunch, schooling and farming in times of scarcity and abundance, and history and heritage of Bainbridge Island farming.

 

Comments from 2010 Summer Institute Participants:

“This week was question provoking, exciting, inspiring, fun, challenging and valuable… Seeing the farm was so valuable and having this incredible site to be at with these amazing participants… What a beautiful web of connections.” -Elementary Teacher, Bainbridge Island

“[I was able to] return to my roots and the way of eating my mother promoted … [I recognized] how my table is part of something much larger and more important than what I’m eating at a particular meal.” -Middle School Teacher, Mountlake Terrace

“What a wealth of experiences, voices, realities, hopes, desires, difficulties — all heard first hand. I have appreciated all of the time farmers and community members gave to tell their experience here in my own community…” -Elementary Teacher, Bainbridge Island

Program Information:

  • Enrollment limited to 20 participants on first come, first serve basis.
  • 35 clock hours will be available (additional fee).
  • Locally grown lunch and snacks included.
  • FFCE Institute Handbook included.
  • Participants are responsible for their own accommodation and transportation. We will be happy to arrange for transportation to and from the Bainbridge Island ferry each day for walk on passengers.

Contact us for information regarding upcoming professional development offerings.