Students at Cultivate Academy, a full-time learning environment for students of all ages in Temple, now spend a few days a week at a seven-acre farm, learning entrepreneurial, agricultural, engineering, and STEM skills.
“Cultivate Academy has been established just this year,” Doree Collins, Owner and Executive Director of Cultivate Academy said. “We’re super excited. Our group is called the ‘Pioneers.’ This is our pilot year to actually create an academy system or process where the kids come in every day like they would in public school or anywhere else, and they spend a day together.”
Students spend three days a week learning at Cultivate Events and Enrichment Center, and the other two, they spend connecting with nature at the Unincluded Club Urban Farm.
“The Unincluded Club Urban Farm, where we really do focus on the urban AG aspect of the Academy,” Collins said. The farm is where they participate in hands-on learning activities like learning how to plant herbs and spices, grow and harvest microgreens and even build gardens.
Collins said she also teaches students the benefits of nature, life skills, engineering, and entrepreneurship. “The advantage is just being out in nature, having this space where it is still intentional, but it gives them the freedom to just be,” she said. “If you create the environment to be conducive to the type of learning that you want, you will get the learning, and you will get the process that you’re desiring.”
Read the complete article at www.kwtx.com.