Picture this.  It’s a chilly February night. You and your partner are out for a stroll around a New England neighborhood, headed towards a sugar shack to make your own maple syrup. When you get there, you’re greeted by the warm atmosphere of local farmers, the smells of their maple syrup infused whisky floating through the air. This is the story of how Christine Schell first came across the wonderful organization of the Natick Community Organic Farm – a beautiful local community that boasts education as their greatest crop!

The farm is nestled down a humble side street next to a school. At 4pm when I arrived at the farm, I felt the buzz of post-school energy before I even saw the children running around. I arrived a few extra minutes early to look around and take it all in. I began walking down a path (pictured above), and proceeded into an area filled with picnic tables – farmhouse on the right, fields on the left. 

Unlike the vast, never-ending fields that come to mind when most people picture “farmland”, this atmosphere was homey, almost cozy in a way – different from the image of endless fields that often define American agriculture . Just nearby a group of children huddled together under a tree. You could instantly tell by walking in that this was a space built to cultivate both the crops and the community.

During my visit, I sat  down at one of the picnic tables to talk with the Interim Assistant Farm Director, Christine, to get a better sense of the work they do for the community. What first appeared to me as  unstructured play was actually a collection of carefully curated after-school programs.

The farm is deeply entrenched in the community. Its programs began in the early 1980’s, and still offers many of the same programs today. These range  from volunteer opportunities and robust summer programs to high school age work programs and more.  There are opportunities for all ages, from infants to high schoolers

What I saw when I entered the farm was a bunch of kids happily enjoying the farm’s atmosphere – the school year programs that families sign their kids up for were in full swing. The youngest kids can be involved in the forest gnome program, which is based off of a successful German/Danish school in the woods model. From small children just beginning to experience the world around them, to highschoolers on track to continue agricultural work in the future, the farm offers a multigenerational environment, and the environmental learning opportunities are abundant for each age level.  

For children who grew up with the programs and develop a deep love for farm work, there are apprenticeships and work opportunities they can participate in as high schoolers. According to Christine, the farm’s goal is to cultivate the involvement of young families in the hopes that they will grow up through these programs. In doing that, they ensure that the children develop a reverence and an understanding of the natural world around them.

I was also interested in what brought Christine into the world of environmental education. Although she is passionate about her work in environmental education now, her original career interests lay elsewhere. She worked for two decades teaching English in high school and working as an arts administrator before moving to  the farm, where she develops  curriculum and teaches about agriculture and environmental science.

When Christine discovered that sugar shack on that cold February night, she was stumbling upon something that would shape the lives of her and her family for decades to come. Her initial involvement with many family and education programs has grown into a much more intimately experience with the educational mission of the farm. It is clear from Christine’s experience working with the farm that all the ‘small stuff’ – variations within outdoor curriculums, the connections made by the kids, and different aspects of the farm’s ecosystems – has substantial impact. The sum of the small parts is what allows people like Christine to help kids see themselves as a part of the natural world – and with any luck, develop the kind of care and compassion for it that this world needs.