Service Learning
Every High School class goes on a two-week service learning trip in the spring. These trips provide hands-on learning experiences, allowing students to participate in activities and efforts out of the realm of their daily home life experiences.
Ninth graders traditionally visit Community Homestead in Osceola Wisconsin where they share in the many daily tasks of a large multi-family biodynamic farm and dairy operation. Students take turns with the morning and afternoon milking and return home having milked cows by hand and by machine.
Tenth graders usually engage in a building project. On recent trips, the students have joined forces with Habitat for Humanity and Earth Ships in Taos, New Mexico. They have also traveled to Montpelier, Vermont, to learn sustainable building techniques at Yestermorrow School of Design.
Eleventh graders visit Kimberton Camphill Village outside of Philadelphia. This is a “village” of developmentally disabled adults who live in family settings and work at various enterprises – woodworking, weaving, baking and gardening. The students join right in with village life, sharing work and meals and forming memorable friendships.
The twelfth grade trip varies each year according to the needs and wishes of the class. The Class of 2009 helped build a farmer’s market for the people of the Bribri tribe in Costa Rica. The Class of 2008 lived and worked in an Israeli Kibbutz.
Each service learning trip provides opportunities for students to experience life outside their daily environments and routines, to reach out to others in collaborative working environments and to see for themselves the differences they can make in the world.