AT THE FARM
One of the unique and most significant parts of our school’s academic experience takes place at a 160-acre farm in upstate New York. Here, students leave the city to learn invaluable lessons about community and interdependence, nature, and sustainability. Many alumni credit their time at the farm as the most important and eye-opening experience of their young lives.
Together with their classroom teachers, students first visit the farm in the spring of their 7-8s year. By 5th grade, they go for three week-long trips a year, one in each season.
What is the Farm Experience Like?
The farm gives students a priceless hands-on opportunity to learn. They tend the gardens, care for the animals (chickens, cows, pigs, and sheep), learn to weave, explore fields and mountains and streams, and study traditional and contemporary life in the Catskills.
Working together to make the farm relatively self-sufficient, students learn to use farm products for food, fuel, and clothing. At the same time, they examine the economies of nature, in the wild and on the farm, and determine the best measures for environmental conservation. Sharing these activities, attending daily classes, and performing household and barn chores, the students come to function as a mutually reliant community.
Of course, we also provide plenty of time for recreation. Ball games, sledding, snowshoeing, jumping in the hayloft, collecting tadpoles, board games, and ping-pong are among the many activities available. A mandatory quiet hour each day makes time for reading, writing, or other solitary activities.
Farm Graduation Requirements
To graduate, students must complete six farm requirements:
1. Milk a cow and manage barn chores
2. Identify birds in addition to other animals
3. Bake with yeast
4. Prepare a meal for the whole class
5. Produce an original textile
6. Participate in a mock town meeting on a current environmental issue
