A one-acre farm located at the Sierra Friends Center is feeding 40 people three times a day and teaching third grade students from Yuba River Charter School where their food comes from.

On a recent sunny October day, children, dirt caked and laughing, buried themselves in piles of broccoli, pushed wheel barrows of straw for the compost, gathered and inspected insects and bunched kale and basil.

“I can almost become invisible here because they're so absorbed. Right now the garden is their teacher,” said Carrie Reuther, a third grade teacher from Yuba River Charter School.

It's all part of the fun, and education, happening weekly as part of a farm to school link hosted by the Woolman Semester farm run by garden manager Malaika Bishop.

“I love working with kids and I feel it's so important for all schools to have a farm to school connection,” Bishop said.

In 2001, Bishop co-founded the People's Grocery, an organization devoted to improving the health and economy of low-income inner city communities of West Oakland through local food systems.

Besides running the farm, Bishop serves on the Briarpatch Co-op board while juggling motherhood. She has two small children, ages 3 and 14 months. Recently she attended a food summit hosted by Live Healthy Nevada County, a gathering focused on improving meal programs in public schools.

After a day on the farm, teacher Carrie Reuther says she feels “complete” about her student's education.

“For me to have them out and really have the experience, it's better than anything I could offer them in the classroom… They're able to take in so much more than if I was lecturing,” Reuther said.

Students expand their understanding of math by measuring and weighing produce and counting peppers and carrots as they harvest. Students recently picked 380 pounds of apples!

A trip to the garden provides journaling inspiration and develops a young person's understanding of history. So far, they've by learned about primitive agriculture, the tools people used to harvest ancient grains and interesting varieties of crops such as a Mohawk strand of corn.

Kids learn about science through the natural world of insects, compost and soil composition.

“It's pretty multi-faceted,” Reuther said.

Food is taken back to the classroom for cooking projects where students learn to can, ferment and pickle the harvest. They make soup and bread.

The farm to school connection is part of a thematic unit block for third graders enrolled at the Waldorf-inspired school. Students learn practical arts like building, cooking and farming, age-old skills considered ‘extras' in most modern curriculum.

“Here, this setting, I feel, meets all the intelligences”, said Reuther. The garden feeds the mind of mathematical, musical and kinesthetic learners.

It's a setting that gives “every child the chance to blossom in their talents and capacities,” she added.

Already, nutrition is a big part of the school's culture where parents are encouraged to pack no sugar and low sugar lunches with as many whole foods as possible. Many students eat gluten-free or vegan diets. All cooking projects are prepared with local, seasonal and organic food.

Later in the school year, students and teachers will travel for an overnight trip to Full Belly Farm, a 300-acre organic farm in the Capay Valley.

Next generation of foodies

Students from all over the country come to attend the Woolman Semester, a 16- week residential high school semester program located on 230 acres off of Jones Bar Road. Originally founded in 1963, the school is named after John Woolman, an 18th century Quaker human rights activist.

During the semester, students read Michael Pollan and travel throughout Northern California to visit slaughterhouses, biotech and food production companies and organic farms.

Currently, 15 students are enrolled. A staff of community interns and educators rounds out the campus population to 40 folks. The farm feeds them all, three meals a day.

Students have cultivated mushrooms and medicinal herbs; they've started beneficial insect gardens and grown staples such as wheat and corn along with unusual plants like peanuts and flax. A significant sized area is reserved for seed saving.

Plans are in the works to expand the program with a hoop house and forest permaculture garden.

Bishop who has traveled the world studying grass roots activism, globalization and ecology sees the value of the farm.

“The garden provides not only really fresh produce, but a place for education… Agriculture is such a big part of being a human being,” she said.

Laura Brown is a freelance writer who lives in Grass Valley. Contact her at 401-4877 or laurabrown323@comcast.net.