College Settlement is land host to Pennypark Farm and Education Centre, a 24 acre fully functioning organic farm, a non-profit community supported agriculture demonstration project. This enables us to offer an incredibly valuable and unique variety of lessons based on sustainable agricultural topics. Students will tour the farm fields and various buildings and will be able to taste some of the fruits and vegetables grown on the farm.
Our teaching staff take students to the farm for an in depth, hands on look at sustainable farming methods. Students learn about integrated Pest Management, farming practices that foster sustainable water and soil use and also get to hear how food gets from field to plate. This is one of our most popular lessons.
Some of the areas staff may focus on include:
- the nature/food connection and where food come from
- how to farm/grow food organically and sustainably – soil and water retention practices
- how to improve family health through cooking and eating well
- the importance of local farming and local food
- integrated pest management
- the importance of heritage breeds and biodiversity in our food plants
- the importance of the animals in food production – birds, bees and bugs.
(This is taken from College Settlement’s Outdoor School Program Lesson Overview which is sent out to each school who visits the Outdoor School).
