Teacher Training
Nominate Your Teacher!
Help bring the farm to the classroom! Do you know of a tri-state area K-12 teacher who is interested in environmental initiatives, nutrition, school gardens or healthy food systems? Nominate them to spend a professional development day at Stone Barns Center learning from our farmers and educators about sustainable food and farming.
Stone Barns Center has partnered with Whole Foods Market’s Northeast region to offer professional development to 24 K-12 teachers in the tri-state area. The day will focus on helping teachers expand their knowledge of sustainable farming and incorporate food and agriculture into their classroom lessons.
During their day at Stone Barns, the selected teachers will explore the following questions:
- Where does our food really come from?
- How does what we choose to eat affect our health, our communities, and the environment?
- How do we begin to teach children to become thoughtful food consumers?
Components of the professional development day include:
- An in-depth tour of the farm at Stone Barns
- Hands-on seasonal farm chores
- Conversations with Stone Barns farmers
- Harvest and preparation of a simple, seasonal farm-to-table lunch
- An opportunity to share resources and activities to take back to the classroom
Members of the public are encouraged to nominate their favorite teacher. Teacher nominations are being accepted through April 15, 2012 at participating Whole Foods Market stores in New York (6 New York City locations, Jericho, Lake Grove, Manhasset, White Plains and Yonkers), New Jersey (Edgewater, Madison, Middletown, Millburn-Union, Montclair, Paramus, Ridgewood and West Orange) and Southeastern Connecticut (Greenwich, Darien, Fairfield, Milford and Westport).
Click here to download the application to nominate a teacher. Please submit completed application at one of the participating Whole Foods Market locations listed above.
The names of teachers selected will be announced by May 1, 2012.
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The Growing Classroom: An Introduction to Garden-Based Learning
Saturday and Sunday, May 5-6, 2012 from 8:30 AM – 4:00 PM
Spend time at Stone Barns and learn from the experts of the award-winning Life Lab Science Program. This special hands-on two-day workshop is for 1st- 8th grade teachers interested in deepening their program with garden-based learning. Using The Growing Classroom – a
nationally recognized activity guide – the workshop integrates gardening into science, math and language arts and is a valuable resource for any school that has a garden (or would like to have
one). Find out how to connect to standards and curriculum while you guide students through the natural cycles of the garden (using the flourishing seasonal gardens at Stone Barns) and focus on making outdoor, inquiry-based education work for different student populations.
To learn more about this workshop and for details on how to register, please click here to download the brochure.
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The Farm in Full: A 3 Day Exploration of Sustainable Agriculture at Stone Barns
July 9, 10 and 11, 2012 from 9:00 AM – 2:00 PM
Over the three days, teachers will learn about our sustainable agricultural practices in raising crops and animals best suited to our region, focusing on the following questions:
• Where does our food really come from?
• How does what we choose to eat affect our health, the health of the land, the community and the environment?
• How do we begin to teach children to become thoughtful food consumers?
Activities include:
• In-depth tour of farm operations
• Hands-on seasonal farm chores (e.g., egg collection, sheep pasture rotation, plant seeding, transplanting, harvesting, greenhouse bed preparation and cleaning)
• Conversations with Stone Barns farmers
• Farm to table lunch (including seasonal harvest, lunch preparation and dining)
• Resources and activities to take back to the classroom
To learn more about this workshop and for details on how to register, please click here to download the brochure.