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Live Oak Waldorf School is committed to environmental stewardship, civic engagement and collaboration. Through deepening our understanding of our interconnectedness and sustainability, we are able to improve the lives of our surrounding community and the world.
The Live Oak Garden
The Live Oak Waldorf garden program utilizes organic food production with education and community building. We envision a coordinated, self-sustaining integrated program encompassing row crops, a greenhouse, an orchard, composting and animal husbandry. Through participation in the program, the children build resilience, develop resource consciousness and live within the rhythms of nature and the cycles of the seasons.
The garden program contributes to school events, the annual auction dinner and to the Early Childhood Village for "Stone Soup Days." The garden program fulfills nature studies in 1st and 2nd grades and is critical to the 3rd grade practical studies curriculum which focuses on farming.
We actively pursue and develop relationships with stakeholders, potential grant funders and the wider parent community to foster commitment and involvement. We welcome contributions of energy, ideas and funds throughout the year.
We continually strive to collaborate and create ways of bettering our planet through use of our 40-acre natural woodland.
BD Bees
BDBees is dedicated to honeybee research and the Biodynamic method of raising honeybees in order to bridge the gap between the "standard," "conventional," or "commercial" method of beekeeping and what is frequently now called the "natural" method. We provide products, services, workshops, and seasonal bees.
The Langstroth hive system has proven successful, especially within the commercial pollination business, but it is not without its flaws. These flaws are at the expense of honeybee health, over-stressing the already fragile inner balance of the colony.
They are currently working on the development of a new system of raising the honeybee that is compatible with the box system most widely used in America today.
Read more about BD Bees on their website.
Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary
In the interest of engaging our students in a local service learning project with a current international environmental issue, Live Oak Waldorf School has formed a team of students, teachers, parents, and board members who are interested in establishing a schoolyard habitat on our campus. Specifically, we are establishing two mass plantings of native milkweeds to support the struggling populations of migratory monarch butterflies, as well as providing an additional nectar source for other pollinators, including our bees. In addition to the benefits for the wildlife, this will give the children the opportunity to have a meaningful, long-term outdoor learning experience that is of service to the world and ties into the science and geography curricula in multiple grades, especially 4th and 5th.
The opportunity to collaborate with people from other organizations striving to effect positive change in the world, in this case the US Fish and Wildlife Service, allows us to directly engage the children in working with others towards a common goal.
Fox Walkers After School Program
"Earth-Skills are a blend of the ancient arts of tracking, wilderness survival, and nature awareness. Earth Skills immerse the student into the environment, giving them first-hand experience of how to “read” the landscape as a steward of the Earth. Through our programs, a re-thinking of our relationship to Nature begins to occur; Nature is not simply a “resource” that we control as a product, but a relationship we must cultivate. Students are introduced to the world of the unseen and eternal, tapping into “the spirit that moves in-all things” as awareness and skills are woven together to serve as a foundation for creating Visionary leaders."
-Rick Berry Founder and Director
Fox Walkers, a program offered by 4 Elements Earth Education, is an ongoing program designed for home-schoolers and public school students. As a Fox Walker, your child will gain hands-on instruction in the ancient arts of wilderness survival, animal tracking, and nature awareness.
The Fox Walkers program meets Thursdays on Live Oak Waldorf School's campus, 1 - 4 pm, for 7 week sessions.
More info at the 4 Elements Earth Education website.
