Placed-based Learning Initiative Write-Up
Pine Community – Skowhegan Area Middle School
Carla Burnham – Language Arts
Community Collaborators:
Skowhegan Area Farmer’s Market : Amber Lambke and Sarah Smith
Western Maine Alliance: Kathleen Beauregard
Essential Question:
Where does my food come from and why should I care?
Overview:
In the Skowhegan community there are a growing number of small farms that are
establishing a local foods market. There is a seasonal farmer’s market in town and
starting this year, a winter market has been created for farmers to continue to make their
products available. Unfortunately, many residents are not aware that the market exists,
and still many more do not understand the benefits to their health and the economy when
purchasing local foods.
Goals and Objectives:
The first goal of this project is to first raise student awareness and understanding of the
health and economic benefits of buying food from a local source. Once the students gain
an understanding of the concept they will be invited to create a web page to inform
Skowhegan area residents of the products available and the economic impact of
supporting their local farms.
Raising Awareness and Understanding:
Initial Lessons:
Skills Class: Students were introduced to an article from a student magazine that allowed
students to reflect on the health concerns of food born illnesses. These readings naturally
engaged students in discussions as to the safety and sources of the foods they eat.
Additional articles were read as students practiced the literacy strategy “Sum It Up”,
which is a technique for identifying the main idea in a non-fiction piece of writing. Using
the “Jigsaw Share” strategy students shared their articles with one another and were
encouraged to dialogue about the topic. Students honed their skills and built their
understanding using a several articles, some teacher chosen and then student selected.
Language Arts: In the 8B class students interviewed a local organic farmer, Bob
Lovelace. The students worked in groups to develop interview questions and anticipated
follow-up questions for the interview. Each group chose an individual to be the
interviewer and a camera operator. On the day of the interview students asked questions
and video taped the interview. The initial intent was to take the interview on film into the
iMovie program and edit the interview. However, after watching the video with the class,
the students agreed that the interview had been very successful. Since persuasive writing
is an essential curriculum skill, students were then asked in their groups to take the film
footage and make a persuasive film, either for or against organic gardening using their
editing skills and graphic tools of the iMovie program. The long slow process began and
students gained a strong understanding of how the meaning of words can be altered in the
editing process. Importing images, sound effects, and transitions helped give depth and
clarity to their films. Of course there were the challenges of collaborative work, and
failures and techniques learned along the way. In six weeks time five short films were
developed and many opinions about organic and conventional farming methods started to
develop.
In the 8A class the students took on the challenge of understanding the Farm Bill
and how economic decisions related to farming were made in our legislature. Using
internet resources this class did web quests, read articles, and practiced literacy skills in
an effort to understand the Farm Bill. Students developed opinions about how the money
in the Bill was used to assist farmers and the type of farms that received this assistance.
Then students were asked to write a persuasive essay to show their opinion on how the
money in the Farm Bill should be used.
Team Enrichment Activities:
Maine Student Lunch: Maine Student Lunch, is a day when the school lunch program
is asked to prepare and serve a lunch that recognizes local foods as part of the school
lunch program. Students read an article and completed a “Sum It Up” activity. Students
learned that our school district would be serving local apples as part of the lunch
program. In small groups, students created posters advertising the orchard that grew the
apples for that day. They also used slogans from the Maine Organic Farmers like:
“Who’s your farmer?” and “Eat better, Eat local”. These posters were displayed around
the school and in the cafeteria to raise awareness of local foods and Maine Student Lunch
Day.
Farmer’s Market and a trip to Grasslands Farm: On Saturday, September 29th eight
students from the Pine Community made a trip to the farmer’s market equipped with
questions and clipboards to learn a little bit about the farmers and what kind of products
they sold. They also took videos- and pictures. The students met Sarah, the owner of
Grasslands Farm and engaged in a discussion about their project. I can’t account for the
conversation but I turned to find five very anxious students dragging me to meet Sarah
because she had two acres of corn that had been grown for the local food bank, but due to
a shortage of staff, they were unable to get it picked. The students wanted to know if this
was something they could do! Time was of the essence, but with much support from
administration, the entire team of ninety people descended on Grasslands farm the
following Wednesday and picked the corn and loaded it onto trucks to be delivered to the
food bank.
Guest Speakers:
Amber Lambke: Also at the Farmer’s market the students and I met Amber Lambke.
Amber oversees the farmer’s market and is a big promoter of local economics, so
naturally we invited her to come speak to our team. When Amber came students were
practiced note taking skills and were given an assessment the following day that applied
the use of their notes.
Dana Seavey: Inspired by the voice of farmers, and conflicted about organic and
conventional farming methods, student Lauren Swain asked if she could invite a
conventional dairy farmer to speak. Lauren made the arrangements with a bit of help with
scheduling and even introduced her guest to the team. Again the students practiced note
taking and were assessed on the content of the presentation.
Community Project Blogging: In mid-October students logged onto a blogging site and
for many, learned how to blog for the first time. Students chose from the many activities
that they had participated in to reflect on their experiences.
The Great Debates: Local vs. Global Economy and Organic vs. Conventional
Farming
As students became more engaged in the essential question it was clear that students
needed to get a deeper understanding of the topic. After completing an interest survey, all
of the students were divided by into four teams to prepare for the debate. The students
worked in debate teams for 40 minutes a week for approximately six weeks. ( Note: this
was spread out through the holiday and snow storm schedule from late November to
January) Individuals were chosen to represent each team and a panel of judges
determined the success for each group. Ironically, in the end the local foods and organic
foods won the debate. This led to a quality follow-up discussion in each group
considering why these groups “won” when everyone clearly understood that we
predominately eat conventional foods driven by a global economy.