Over the past four months, the Liberty Prairie team worked together to create the Living Laboratory, an outdoor classroom at the farm.
We think of the Living Laboratory as a healthy, diverse ecosystem that supports immersive, engaging, and educational experiences.
Our 95-acre holistically and regeneratively managed farm already offers a wide variety of educational opportunities for high school students.
In this past week alone, Jeff’s ESF classes engaged with conservation grazing systems; Spanish language classes interviewed our farm team in Spanish to better understand seasonal work experiences; Geometry in Construction classes presented the farm with their beautiful farm box construction projects; and Entrepreneurship classes visited the farm to prepare for their upcoming projects.
The Living Laboratory provides something different: year-round enrichment activities for K-8 classrooms, kids and families.
To offer these experiences, we built a new educational garden, which provides an in-motion art and learning experience. Garden travelers walk along a circuitous route through an educational garden pathway. Along the route, travelers use their five senses to engage with what’s growing. The pathway encourages staying present, pausing to consider sunlight, and allows hands-on learning about soil health. The ADA-accessible portion of the garden offers direct ways to interact with soil, plants and thoughtfully observe the natural environment surrounding the garden.
Within the newly developed pollinator garden, located within the Community Gardens, pollinators are meant to frolic among the native flowers while providing services (i.e., pollination!) to nearby community members’ growing vegetables, flowers, and decorative plants.
The Community Gardens take on different meanings throughout different seasons. Visitors learn about the communities of insects and fungi, birds and animals, and gardeners that gather.
Our year-round farm structures, such as greenhouses, hoophouses, barns, and historic buildings, are included in food production, high school education, and the Living Laboratory.
For the Living Laboratory, we offer opportunities to engage with feeding our local midwest community throughout snowy months and consider how year-round growing provides all of us with food security.
There are plenty of hands-on learning experiences alongside our animal educators. We discuss all that the farm livestock provide to our ecosystem, our farm, and learning while, of course, allowing for time for friendly visiting! Families engage with the farm livestock and learn about integrated farming systems.
Finally, CSA members are welcome to stay after the event for our annual members-only u-pick opportunity.
Please join us for opening remarks at the Ribbon-Cutting at the Living Laboratory event this Saturday, October 5th, at 9 a.m.
The event will be a fun celebration of all that can be experienced and learned on the farm!
See you at the farm,
Jeff, Jen, Karen, and the Liberty Prairie team
