An outdoor learning lab where K-12 curriculum meets farm to table food production

Mission:

The Mission of the Waynesboro Education Farm is to be a community facing learning lab engaging the development of the whole child and their families. We do this through integrating curriculum delivery into farm to table food production. We believe this experience creates core memories for students that operationalize standards of learning in a way that ensures later recall. While our product or yield on the farm is student achievement, we also produce a large amount of organic food for delivery to school cafeterias and various community pantries.

Story:

Waynesboro Education Farm is the vision of several Waynesboro City School Educators. Beginning several years ago, Dr. India Harris - Director of Secondary Education and Eliza Williamson, Math Coach at Kate Collins Middle School got together with several other educators and area nonprofits with the goal of creating an outdoor learning space. These initial conversations led to writing and receiving a grant from Virginia Department of Education for an Extended School Year program. With this original grant the division explored developing a learning farm on land adjacent to Kate Collins Middle School. This turned out to be a false start as problems arose with using private land for the project in the planning stages. Shortly after, the division identified Berkeley Glenn where the project is now located. In the first two years of the project, WPS partnered with Alleghany Mountain Institute to build out the farm and get it started. AMI did a great job executing the early stage of the project. In 2022/2023 the contract ended with AMI and it was time for WPS to reevaluate the project’s goals. At this time the goals of the project shifted from food access to student achievement. A new call for proposals for partner organizations was released and due to their strong commitment to outdoor education Project GROWS was selected to partner on the project. Waynesboro Education Farm is in its 3rd year of the project and continues to improve both food production and curriculum delivery.

About:

Waynesboro Education Farm is made up of Farm Educator Ryan Blosser and Farm Manager Jason Fullerton who support the farm and educational outreach.

How:

With the support of Project GROWS, We serve the district through various after school clubs and summer camps. One of the primary ways we make our impact is through hosting lessons on the farm. The farm experience begins with a teacher or group of teachers reaching out to the Farm Educator Ryan Blosser and coordinating a brief planning meeting. In the meeting the teacher or group of teachers answers a couple of quick questions around which standard the teacher would like the farm to cover. The teacher then chooses the visit to be led by the farm educator, co-led by the teacher and farm educator, led by the teacher, or simply a volunteer work service visit. Next a date is set for the lesson.