This mission statement is accomplished in a variety of ways. 

 

Each year, using our outstanding outdoor classrooms, we bring students of all ages outside and offer hands-on environmental programs that focus on our habitats with their diverse flora and fauna. When people appreciate and understand the world around them, they become better stewards of their environment. 

 

Our Shared Harvest and gardening programs directly connect participants with the land, its cycles and its bounty. Garden program participants learn how to establish, tend and harvest vegetable and herb gardens in their own backyard. Shared Harvest members are invited to work in our gardens and then share in the bounty throughout the growing season.

 

Our educational farm programs provide an important introduction to the key role farms play in our lives. Depending on their level, students meet and often work with our cows, sheep and chickens-learning their importance on the farm. Products from our farm animals such as milk and yogurt may be purchased in our Dairy Annex provide a direct connection of where certain types of food come from.

 

Our Native American programs, which take place on our woodland trails and our authentically recreated encampment, focus on the lifeways of the Eastern Woodland Indians that once inhabited these lands. Students learn how these native people survived using their knowledge of their environment and skills they developed and passed down through the generations.

 

Our Astronomy programs give participants a personal view of the Universe.  As a wonderful complement to programs focusing on environmental awareness and appreciation of life here on Earth, astronomy program participants observe the wonders of the cosmos first hand through optical telescopes.  Participants also get to hear about the latest developments in the science of astronomy which provide clues to the mysteries of our own origins and those of our home planet.