Updated 7/10/07

Global Source Education Presents:

Food, Farming, Culture and Education Summer Institute

Toward an Ecology of Sustainable
Schools and Community

Educator's Retreat, July 16-18, 9:30am-4:30pm

Curriculum Workshop*, July 19-20, 10am-3pm
(*optional for retreat participants)

July 16-20, 2007

Day Road Farms
8989 Day Road East
Bainbridge Island, WA
(click here for directions)

In parternship and collaboration with:
Trust for Working Landscapes
Bainbridge Island Vineyards
Laughing Crow Farm
Healthier Kids Bainbridge
Bainbridge Historical Society
Bainbridge Island School District
Town & Country Market
Food Muse Inspired Catering
Island Health Foods
and Others

Betsey Wittick and her horses teach students about farm practices on Day Road Farms.
(Photo: Brenda Berry)

Program Overview:

What are the possibilities for teaching and learning about food and farming in our classrooms and communities?

How do we work towards an ecology of sustainable schools and communities?

Since Fall 2006, more than 70 local educators and community members have been gathering to engage in a meaningful professional and civic dialogue about food, farming, culture and education. Participants represented fifteen different schools and an equal number of community organizations. These dialogues attracted a wide range of community stakeholders who addressed diversity of perspectives and identified common threads around a number of key issues.

We discovered that working towards the ecology of sustainable schools and communities means finding more authentic and meaningful ways to bridge classroom and communities around:

These educational ideas and interest generated by these dialogues reinforces the wisdom of John Dewey, that “the school itself shall be made a genuine form of active community life, instead of place set apart in which to learn lessons.”   They also echoed the words of Aldo Leopold, “To change ideas about what land is for is to change ideas about what anything is for.” Schools and educators want to find authentic and meaningful ways to strengthen what we already feel responsible for in our teaching and learning: scholarship, stewardship and citizenship.

These dialogues has presented us with a special opportunity to build strong educational relationships between local schools and farms and other working landscapes and nurture best practices and model curricula on a community wide scale. 

In response to feedback and interest from dialogue participants, Global Source Education, in collaboration with local organizations and schools, is planning a Summer Institute on Food, Farming, Culture and Education, in July 16-20, 2007, at the Day Road Farms on Bainbridge Island.

This intensive program is designed to engage school and community-based educators in a comprehensive program aimed at feeding a series of professional education experiences, curriculum development projects, community-based activities and public education programs that will follow throughout 2007-8.

Threaded throughout these learning experiences will be the pedagogical and curricular considerations that have framed our previous dialogues:

• Examining the interconnectedness of scholarship, stewardship and citizenship 
• Raising awareness, building knowledge, and fostering engagement
• Engaging in lively and critical professional dialogue and stories with a broad range of voices
• Building stronger bridges between classroom and community
• Improving and enhancing professional repertoire
• Cultivating a more lived curriculum
• Strengthening school-community collaboration & relationships
• To work as a professional learning community around a common area of study
• To expand professional and community networks

Goals and Objectives of the Summer Institute:

• To improve the quality of local education and establish sustainable community-school relationships
• To build stronger bridges between classroom and community through our teaching and learning
• To examine and experience various approaches and best practices for teaching and learning, and integration into existing curriculum and school culture of elementary and secondary education.
• To strengthen relationships and building stronger bridges between local farms and local schools on Bainbridge Island and North Kitsap
• To gain understanding from lively and critical professional dialogue and discourse with a broad range of voices from education and the larger community.
• To explore curriculum making that raises awareness, builds knowledge and fosters engagement
• To integrate this work with EALR’s, CBA’s, and other standards
• To assist farmers, tradition bearers, community leaders in building a stronger professional and civic repertoire for engaging K-12 education.
• To develop, implement and assess a series of curriculum projects that actively connect farms to classrooms to lunchrooms To deepen the ability to help students to think and act around the interdependence of these local and global concerns, and their place in their lives
• To build a resource lending library and curriculum bank
  
  

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Educator's Retreat
July 16-18, 9:30am-4:30pm (with optional July 17 evening activity)

Discover how a lived experience can inform and cultivate a more lived curriculum! Join us for three days of presentations, hands-on activities, workshops, and dialogue, designed to deepen your professional repertoire and connect you to people, places, projects and possibilities to enrich and enliven your teaching about issues we, as educators, already feel responsible for in our curriculum. Explore authentic, meaningful, and comprehensive ways to bridge classroom and community.

Program Itinerary: **

Monday, July 16

You will learn about the practice of sustainable farming and agrarian ideals at Day Road Farms.  We will get our hands and feet in the soil with Gerard Bentryn, of Bainbridge Island Vineyards, and Betsey Wittick, of Laughing Crow Farm, and explore the possibilities of developing your own farming project with Day Road farms and gardening projects at your school.

Judith Weinstock, caterer extraordinaire and culinary arts educator, will prepare a lunch of locally grown food and share her ideas for integrating culinary arts in the curriculum.

Barry Peters, from Sustainable Bainbridge, and Ed Mikel & Jonathan Scherch, from Antioch University Seattle, and Kat Gjovik, regional Earth Charter community organizer, will discuss local and global issues of sustainability, permaculture, food security, the Earth Charter, and civics education.

Dennis Vogt, from Trust for Working Landscapes, will discuss ideas about reclaiming the commons at Day Road Farms, and Gail Davis, from Breidablik Elementary, will share her curriculum on teaching about the commons.

Tuesday, July 17

Through readings, documentaries, and living resources, we will explore history, heritage, and cultural diversity of farming on Bainbridge Island.   Joan Piper, education director of The Bainbridge Island Historical Society, has invited us to visit the museum to examine their collection on the history of local farming, learn about the Marshall Strawberry Project, and explore their Dig Deep CBA curriculum.

To learn about the grocery side of food, farming and sustainability, we will visit and have lunch at Town and Country Market, celebrating 50 years serving Bainbridge Island,

Dave Ullin, woodworker and tradition bearer, will talk with us about purposeful work, experiential education, and forest to classroom projects.  He will lead us through hands-on traditional woodworking projects you can organize for your students on Day Road Farms and at your school.

In the early evening, we will host a social gathering and wine tasting at Bainbridge Island Vineyards & Winery for participants, presenters, and invited guests.

Wednesday, July 18

Bobbie Morgan, of the Natural Landscapes Project and Brian Stahl, from the Kitsap Conservation District, will talk with us about conservation and habitat education, and the composting and planting projects they are doing  with local schools.

David Cowan, local physician and co-founder of Healthier Kids Bainbridge, just back from visiting the Center for Eco-Literacy and Edible School Yard in California, will talk with us about issues of food, health, and nutrition, and the possibilities for rethinking school lunch.

A lunch and food talk provided by Bainbridge Island's Island Health Food and Jay Sklar.

We close the retreat by revisiting our experiences on the farm and discuss how we plan to apply our learning experiences to our teaching practice.

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With the experience that our participating K-12 and community-based educators bring to this program, there will be no shortage of pedagogical and curricular ideas to be exchanged and created during our time together.

Participants will receive a comprehensive resource handbook to complement these sessions and the larger themes of the institute.

Curriculum Workshop (optional for retreat participants)
July 19-20, 10:00am-3pm
An additional series of working sessions in professional, supportive, collaborative environment for retreat participants who wish to develop, implement and assess a dedicated curriculum project that connects farm, classroom and lunchroom.

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Program Information:

Educator's Retreat is open to 20 Participants

Each day of the retreat will feature a special lunch and talk, featuring locally grown food, prepared by local culinary experts, and tied to the themes of the Institute.

15 clock hours will be available (additional fee).

An institute handbook and starter library will be given to each participant.

Single day options are available for those who are unable to attend the full Educator's Retreat. Please contact us for more details.

Tuition:
Professional Education Retreat: $200 for Global Source Members; $225 for Non-Members.

Tuition will be pro-rated for people limited to daily participation. Please contact us for more information.

Curriculum Workshop: additional $95

A $45 deposit is required to to reserve a place in this programs (refundable up to two weeks before the start of the program).

Download a Registration Form

Learn more about becoming a member of Global Source

Learn more about our initiative on Food, Farming, Culture and Education

If you have any questions or would like to learn more about this program, please contact us.

What Educators Are Saying About Global Source

**Program subject to change.

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