Farm to School
Through lessons taught by Common Roots educators, preschool through grade 5 students in the South Burlington School District build healthy lifelong eating habits while learning about our local food system and the value of land stewardship. We cook with students who then taste and evaluate their creations. We provide taste tests of recipes created by students using fresh organic produce harvested from our farms and the Larkin Orchard. Students advance to middle school having received 54 explicit lessons and taste tests from Common Roots (K–5).
Farm to GO
Our six-week long culinary and nutrition programs for student-chefs in grades 6 through 8 is popular. Each week students prepare a balanced dinner, which they take home for their families to enjoy. These young chefs learn how to follow recipes and cook nourishing, hearty meals. We empower student chefs to expand their palates. They visit our farm in the fall, spring and summer sessions to learn the value of nutrient-dense soils. To date, students have prepared over 15,000 meals!
Sumer Camp!
Talented educators collaboratively nurture the inner life of people of all ages. We facilitate opportunities for children, families, and the community throughout the year on our farms, in the Seven Sisters Abenaki Garden, and at the Wheeler Homestead. In camps, field trips, workshops, Farm Hop, Maple Moon, and other seasonal gatherings. These experiences are designed to nurture a sense of wonder, and gratitude and offer acts of reciprocity towards the land.
Internships
Our college internships draw students from the University of Vermont, Champlain College, and Saint Michael’s College, along with other colleges and universities. Over the years we have engaged a growing number of students in our programs and enterprises, offering 80 internships annually. Students build marketable skills in agriculture, environmental advocacy, nutrition, and food systems while gaining valuable firsthand, life-changing knowledge in education, ecology, and public policy. One recently said, “This is the real deal how-to-be-in-the-world, an opportunity like no other.” We also engage a growing number of students from several local high schools.
I received hands-on experience that you can’t find sitting in a classroom. I was allowed to see with my own eyes how excited people were to have conversations about nutrition-based education and how open they were to purchasing local organic food. This internship was good for the soul.
— UVM Intern