Real Life Farm Science 2026-27
Fall focus: ecology
Week 3 - September 17, 2026
CLASS SUMMARY
Written work focus this fall is ecology — lecture and notes on communities in ecosystem (all the living things) and population of a specific organism
Discovery Time: community on Mt. Helix — coyote scat analysis - what is it eating? Why aren’t the palm seeds digested? How does this compare to grains we eat? Or cows eat? How is grain for animals made more easy to digest? How do we make grains more easy to digest?
Farm Work together — science of grinding wheat and why we are importing dirt to level the corrals (puddles —> fly and mosquito breeding habitat, slipping hazard, smell, hoof rot)
Animal project: - preparing for bantam hens!
Week 2 - September 10, 2026
CLASS SUMMARY
Written work focus this fall is ecology — lecture and notes on abiotic, biotic elements in a habitat, interdependence (examples).
Discovery Time: student selected research projects
Farm Work together (we did less hot work today!) Thank you to Arlie’s mom, Melissa, for popsicles!
Animal project: - next week we will prepare for bantam hens
Week 1 - September 3, 2026
This is the only HW you’ll have all year in this class: get your stuff organized!
SUPPLIES: Visit the all-in-one-supplies page Print that out and check off each item so you have those things ready. May I emphasize a few items from that list: shoes/boots that can get really dirty- by dirty I mean muddy and manure on them. Farm-only shoes. They can leave a pair of rain boots here if they want for mucking and your own gardening gloves. It may be hot the first weeks of class so in particular make sure you have a bandana to wet down and a water bottle.
BINDER: Prepare your three-ring binder. Make sure the following are in it:
Lined paper
Two tabs (one for work/handouts, one for lined paper)
Print out the “Table of Contents” form. Put this in your work/handouts section.
Put your name on the binder
PROJECTS: Think about which projects you are most excited about: Aquaculture- raising new fish! Sericulture - raising silk worms. Bunny preparations. Bantam hens -raising small chickens.
CLASS SUMMARY
Please see the all-in-one-supplies page
Welcome, get to know you, safety expectations.
Discovery Time:
11:00 session — sketching cactus flowers and fruits of the Peruvian Apple Cactus ( Cereus Repandus).
12:00 session Fly reproduction and why maggots need moist environments and what that means for reducing fly populations. Why we want to reduce fly populations (i.e. how flies transmit disease).
Brainstorming: what do we want to learn about? We created lists to guide our study of farm science this semester.
Written work focus this fall is ecology - introduction: study of interactions between organisms in an environment with each other and with the non-living things in their environment.
ANIMAL PROJECT vote: silk worms? bantam chickens? pond creatures including fish? Both session voted together- winner was bantam chickens.
Farm Work: Farm work is social time, learn how to care for plants and animals time, learn how to work in a team, and in the words of one student “wow, that was oddly satisfying” get stuff done time. A job well done feels great and builds grit which transfers into other arenas of life.
Students in Action
