Roberts Farm Experiential Learning

A partnership between the Western Foothills Land Trust, Oxford Hills School District and Healthy Oxford Hills.

Roberts Farm Experiential Learning is a unique example of what is possible when a school district creates strong community partnerships with local organizations.

The Western Foothills Land Trust manages Roberts Farm Preserve, a 212 acre outdoor recreation and nordic ski center with nearly 20 miles of year-round trails that are open to the community. The Western Foothills Land Trust also supports education work by allowing a local school district to use part of this property as a home base for their programs, including the classroom site and space for a 2-acre demonstration garden.
The Oxford Hills School District (MSAD 17) considers Roberts Farm Preserve to be an off-campus learning site for all schools in the district. A year-round Experiential STEM teacher works on site at Roberts Farm, organizing programming, managing the site and hosting students.
The New Balance Foundation provides funding to Healthy Oxford Hills to staff the Growing Healthy Kids program, which is a major partner for the educational programs, focusing on physical activity and nutrition.

This collaboration enables nature-based programming year round, creating meaningful learning experiences in the garden and along the trails. Students help manage the greenhouses and three-dozen raised beds on site. They grow produce that is sold to the Oxford Hills Food Service program and incorporated into school lunches. Extra produce is also donated to local food pantries. Over the past two growing seasons, they have harvested over 500 lbs of produce from the gardens and that doesn’t take into account all of the tomatoes, carrots, and blueberries that were eaten by students directly from the garden!

The school-year programs target fifth-grade classes and no matter what elementary school a fifth grader attends, they will participate in the Roberts Farm Program which hosts each of the eleven 5th grade classes once a month over the course of the school year resulting in 8-10 days spent at Roberts Farm for each of the 230 students! This is a unique place-based structure where students get to experience the land in just about every season including hands-on interdisciplinary lessons rooted in the 5th grade science and health curriculum. Each time they visit, students go hiking or cross country skiing and they engage in a STEM lesson. Topics include decomposers, ecosystems, plant growth and the maple syrup process. Sweet!

Beyond the fifth-grade program, support is offered for other classes in the Oxford Hills district to engage in outdoor and experiential learning. Teachers can bring their classes to Roberts Farm for self-supported experiences at the preserve. This fall, nearly 140 students visited Roberts Farm with their classes, ranging in grade level from 2nd through high school!

During the summer, they also partner with the Alan Day Community Garden in hosting the Youth Leadership Program, a free month-long garden based program for local middle and high school students. The partnership enables them to enroll two cohorts of students at the same time, with each group spending two weeks at each site. During their time at Roberts Farm, Youth Leaders host garden-based lessons for elementary summer school students which resulted in Youth Leaders facilitating ten lessons for over 160 students last summer!

In addition to this programming, they also help lead their district’s Farm to School initiatives. Their team consists of teachers, school board members, numerous community partners as well MSAD 17’s outdoor learning coach and superintendent Heather Manchester.

In the next year, they look forward to moving into a new classroom which will replace the outdated portable on site. This new classroom, paired with an outdoor pavilion and a yurt, will enable them to expand their reach to more classes in the Oxford Hills School District. These infrastructure developments are made possible by MSAD 17’s American Rescue Plan (ARP) Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funding, a generous donation from the New Balance Foundation, and an important grant from the E. B. Sewall Foundation.