Woolman Blog

Check out our Press Release for the upcoming weekend's events!

Students from the local Woolman Semester School come to the end of their four month educational program spent studying peace, justice, and sustainability. The public is invited to come see the students present their culminating projects for their Peace Studies and Environmental Science classes the weekend of May 17^th.

A semester program for high school juniors, seniors, and gap year students, who hail from all over the country, Woolman offers the opportunity to learn first hand about social and environmental justice. Three core classes of Global Issues, Peace Studies, and Environmental Studies explorethe interdependence of the political, historical, cultural, and environmental forces that shape the problems our world is facing today.

In each core class students design and carry out a project throughout the semester. “Class projects allow students to engage fully with classroom material and enable them to carry on their activism beyond Woolman,” explains admissions director Emily Wheeler. In addition, class projects embody Woolman’s educational philosophy of teaching through experience and are the main way students take ownership of their education.

On Friday May 17^th at 7pm there will be a screening of peace documentaries, the culminating project for the Peace Studies Class, at the UU Community of the Mountains. The Peace Studies class “examines how we tell stories as a culture and why it matters. We particularly explore how our common cultural narratives can contribute to a climate of violence,” says Peace Studies teacher Grace Oedel. Their ten-minute documentaries enable students to tell stories about our culture in a way that counteracts that climate of violence and builds one of peace.

Documentaries this semester include one on the role of police in our society and another on the Steubenville High School Rape Case. Each documentary incorporate interviews from national and local experts to deepen the audience’s understanding of the issues. All are invited to come see these four thought provoking student-filmed, edited, and directed films!

OnSaturday May 18^th at 9am all are welcome for a tour of the student’s Sustainability projects at the Woolman campus, located off of Jones Bar Road. Throughout the semester the Environmental Science class looks at different environmental issues in today’s world and explores ways to solve them.  The sustainability projects are a way for students to try creative solutions for pressing needs at Woolman.

“Completing their sustainability projects gives students the opportunity to not only leave the legacy of their commitment to the earth for future students but to also learn practical skills that they can implement beyond Woolman,” explains Environmental Studies teacher Jacob Holzberg-Pill. This semester’s projects include a natural dye garden, a solar dehydrator, and a methane bio-digester!

Both events are free and open to the public. Come see Woolman’s unique education at work and what this semester’s students are doing to make a difference! Visit woolman.org for more information.

Over the past week, we have traveled many miles, and learned so many things about food, justice, sustainability, and community. We picked strawberries overlooking the Pacific Ocean while learning about water dependency in coastal California, and supported local economies at the Santa Cruz and Berkeley farmers markets while planning a cohesive feast. We explored the magic of life at the Regenerative Design Institute, and were given a very persuasive lecture about the benefits of genetically modified organisms at the UC Davis labs. At Wolfskill Experimental Orchard, we ate our fill in mulberries while marveling at the potential food supply it could be to the local community.

Strangely, what I’ve been thinking a lot about in the week following this trip is our dependence on sugar. It comes from the tour we took at the Jelly Belly Factory in Davis. It was a fascinating, horrible, amazing and crazy place. I think having spent three to five months prior abstractly considering my sugar intake, reading the book “Sugar Blues”, being counseled by my mother and my dentist, and considering sugar in general. At the Jelly Belly factory we were toured around a large warehouse, where we saw lots of heavy machinery, people working the machinery in white jumpsuits, and lots and lots of sugar! I was surprised and interested when Jacob pointed out to us that all the giant bags of sugar had “Cargill” on it. It was surprising to me that this big company, Jelly Belly, still gets its sugar from an even bigger corporation. It made me sad to see all of the workers who were inside the giant factory listening to loud beeps and clanks all day. And that’s not even going into the political and historical aspects of sugar.

I switched on and off from chanting “Jel-ly Beans! Jel-ly Beans!” and being disgusted and repulsed with American culture. All in all, I really loved this trip and relished the opportunity to look at real life food systems!

photo credit: Haley Jackson

One topic which has surfaced multiple times over the course of the semester is the controversy over genetically modified seeds. 

With the emphasis in Environmental Science centered on alternative methods to petroleum-based farming, GMO crops have fallen into a middle classification – not falling into the category of agroecology, yet also being separate from farming methods developed during the Green Revolution.  As a result, the trip to the Seed Biotechnology Center at UC Davis during the food intensive provided an informational and extensive viewpoint about how GMO seeds fit into global agriculture today, and what the potential is for GMO seeds in the future.  Kent Bradford, the director of the Seed Biotechnology Center kindly gave the semester a presentation on the work that UC Davis is doing in regards to GMO seeds and how that work is being used by farmers.  Bradford emphasized the expanding population in his lecture, and how that plays into the development of agriculture.  Like many in the semester, Bradford discussed his skepticism about the long-term effectiveness of farming with pesticides and fertilizers that exact a heavy toll on both famers and the environment, but also expressed his doubt that a return to traditional organic agriculture will be able to feed global populations. 

What I found most informative about this was his explanation of how GMO crops produce similar yields as conventional farming, but eliminate the need for pesticides and fertilizers by their enhancement which confer greater disease resistance, improves seed vigor and modifies seed emergence capabilities.  In the sense that genetically modified crops do not need chemicals, they are grown organically, which surprised me and contradicted my existing viewpoint that GMO seeds are simply an offshoot of petro-chemical farming. 

However, Bradford also acknowledged the downsides to GMO seeds and the unease which many people feel about seeds that are genetically modified in labs.  There is a possibility that GMO seeds will completely fail, which has led to restrictions on the use of genetically modified crops – regardless of the extent to which they have been tested, and many people have problems with how GMO seeds can be trademarked.  Regardless of the opinion which the semester came into the presentation with, and the opinion with which we left, Kent Bradford shared with us valuable knowledge about genetically modified seeds that can be used as long as the GMO seed debate is around.

The following is an excerpt from a recent press release:

The students of The Woolman Semester School are excited to host a night celebrating environmental and social justice activism by bringing the film, Occupy Love, to Grass Valley on Friday, May 10^th.

Both a film premiere and a Change-maker’s Symposium, the evening will start with a reception where students from Woolman’s Activist Toolkit class will be informing and inspiring guests.

The Occupy Love website states, “a profound shift is taking place: humanity is waking up to the fact that the dominant system of power is failing to provide us with health, happiness or meaning. Join the filmmaker, Velcrow Ripper, on a journey deep inside the revolution of the heart that is erupting around the planet, as he asks the question: how could the crisis we are facing become a love story?”

Featuring captivating insider scenes from the Egyptian Revolution, the Indignado uprising in Spain, Occupy Wall Street in New York, Indigenous activists at the Alberta Tar Sands, the climate justice movement, and beyond, Occupy Love aims to show that love can unite as much as greed can divide.

 “Occupy Love is directly connected to the curriculum at our school. Whether the lessons are on gift economies or nonviolent resistance, our students are gaining an education that is relevant to this unique time in human history,” says Activist Toolkit Class teacher, Emily Zionts.

The Change-maker’s Symposium will give the young activists a chance to display their plans for creating a more just and sustainable world.  Zionts says, “Come at 7:15pm for the film, but come at 6:30pm for a dose of authentic, active hope through poetry, giant puppets, fair trade treats, and more.”

This event is free of cost. All are welcome!

Evening Schedule (all events take place at the UU Church):

·       6:30pm Change-Makers Symposium begins

·       7:15pm Occupy Love begins

For more information:

·       The Woolman Semester School: semester.woolman.org

·       Activist Toolkit Teacher: Emily Zionts 530-273-3183

·       Occupy Love: www.occupylove.org

The weeks are flying by, and we are already into the last month of Woolman! The garden is flourishing and harvests are coming in massive amounts daily. With all the interns work, it's no wonder the greens are bumpin'! 

For the past couple of months I've been researching and comparing different types of possible organic certifications for the garden. In the end it was between CCOF, California certification and CNG, Certified Naturally Grown. I ended up choosing CNG for many reasons. One, it was the least costly and seemed to me like the most efficient for the small scale farming/gardening that Woolman does. Secondly, it stood out to me as original and in tune with Woolman's values because it functions mostly on a peer to peer network. That is, fellow CNG farms help you through certification and guide you as a mentor, then peer farmers keep in touch and work together on improving their land. There is a CNG farm nearby in Nevada City and I am hoping to visit it soon! I love the idea of peer to peer networking and think that with time, Woolman will embrace it and take it in exactly the direction we are looking to expand in. 

Certification is important for Woolman not only for "bragging rights" and advertisement, but also for our own peace of mind and pride as a community in our garden. After all, it is a shared space, where little four year old Althea finds 4 inch slugs and eats all the strawberries while still green. It is also a place where we have all gotten the chance to plant our own seeds and see our own plants grow. With this community interest, it is important to be able to trust in organic practices, and knowing that there aren't things like heavy metals in our soil (we are in a mining area) and so on! In addition, researching the organic practices and trying to emulate them for own own sake and peace of mind is more important than the actual achievement of certification, which I love about Woolman because it is another extension of ourselves and the discovery we do outdoors. 

Check out our Press Release for the upcoming Spring Work Party!

Nevada City (April 15, 2013)- This Saturday, April 20^th, students, staff, and community members of the Woolman Semester School support Earth Day by joining together for a day of work on the 230-acre campus. All are invited to come help out!

A semester program for high school juniors, seniors, and gap year students who hail from all over the country, Woolman offers the opportunity to learn first hand about social and environmental justice. Interacting with the land is a crucial component of their time spent at Woolman and has become an even larger part with the introduction of the Farm to Forest educational program in the spring of 2011.

The Farm to Forest program offers a new way of stewarding land. Instead of managing the garden, orchard, pasture, campus, and forest separately, all units are seen as part of the whole environment that we as individuals are constantly impacting with every choice we make. Now, the care for the land is not left to just the maintenance crew but is taught through the academics to the students as well. One of the main ways the students participate in caring for the land is through two-hour bi-weekly shared work crews.

This Saturday will demonstrate this new holistic approach to land stewardship. Similar to shared work there will be work crews in the garden, orchard, and in the forest. The forest crew this year has been working on an exciting new project that was started by the Environmental Studies teacher Jacob Holzberg-Pill.   

This past June Holzberg-Pill received the TogetherGreen Fellowship Grant from the National Audubon Society and Toyota to begin restoring an old mining ditch that circles Woolman’s property. The immediate goal is to create an active swale as well as a road that together will reduce erosion by increasing water recharge into the ground and encourage people to use the forest recreationally. The long-term project will ultimately restore the land damaged by mining.

On Saturday the forest crew will focus on removing Scotch Broom, an invasive species that has spread along the swale. “This day would not be possible without our partnership with the Fire Safe Council of Nevada County, donations from the National Wildlife Federation, and the hard work of our local community members,” says Holzberg-Pill.

Come join the Woolman community this Saturday and see first hand their experiential education at work! Beginning at 9am on the Woolman Campus, located off Jones Bar Road, there will be work crews until noon and all are welcome to stay for lunch! If interested, please RSVP at http://woolman.org/events/2013/spring-work-day.   

It’s common wisdom that the West lacks water. Droughts are increasingly frequent and every summer fires sweep through California, destroying millions of acres of trees, brush, and homes.

But the truth is more complicated; the Sierra foothills, for instance, receive about sixty inches of rain in an average year. It’s just that this rain arrives in just six months out of the year and rushes right through our property, eroding topsoil and rocketing through the Los Angeles watershed. The other six months we have a dry season, an accompanying fire ban, and a mandate from our local fire board to irrigate at least fifty of our property’s 230 acres.

This imbalance is worsened by the effects of human industry. For years gold miners dug our creeks deeper and narrower, purposely increasing erosion in an effort to extract precious metals. More recently, climate change, by melting the snowpack on nearby mountains to far below average levels, deprives our watershed of an efficient, free, natural method of slow-release water storage; instead of having snow gradually melt throughout the summer, we now get short, enormous bursts of winter rain that our land cannot absorb. Although there are indeed regions of the West with very little water, the problem for many land stewards like us is one of water storage. The solution, then, is to trap more water on our property during the winter months, thereby reducing topsoil erosion, mitigating summer droughts, and encouraging biodiverse riparian zones.

Especially after Permaculture Design classes on hydrology with Grace, Jacob, and Doug, we have many options for achieving those goals, but the one that we interns have experimented with so far has been building check dams across eroded creek beds. The EPA has this useful definition of check dams on its web site: 

“Check dams are relatively small, temporary structures constructed across a swale or channel. They are used to slow the velocity of concentrated water flows, a practice that helps reduce erosion. As stormwater runoff flows through the structure, the check dam  catches sediment from the channel itself or from the contributing drainage area.”

First, note that check dams do not attempt to stop water flow---only to slow it. Because when water slows, it spreads, and when it spreads, it sinks. Second, the middle of the dam should remain lower than the sides---to funnel the moving water through the center, and not where it would further erode the banks. And third, check dams are not a solution to all of our water problems---just some.

Yet the EPA also suggests building them out of logs, stones, sandbags, gravel or straw, estimates their installation costs at between $60 and $100, and asserts that they are only temporary flood-control measures. The check dams we’ve been building are nothing like these. They’re made of willow stalks cut from our own trees, stuck into the gravel creek beds and secured with rocks, and with thinner willow branches woven across for support.

They each cost nothing and take only thirty minutes to install. Furthermore, the willows, which have rather high levels of natural rooting hormone, will hopefully root in the creek bed---meaning that not only will the dams require no maintenance; they may grow us the materials for yet more check dams.

A very large storm last week confirmed our wildest hopes. In this picture, you can see the difference between the slow-moving, muddy water before the dam and clearer water trickling out of the dam. And the sediment gradually building up on the dam provides the willows with topsoil. Together with other hydraulic engineering techniques, willow check dams can help us regenerate the land and its water system.

The Bay Area Community Exchange, or BACE, is a communal time bank where members offer their services and time in exchange for being part of a community where resources are given and received freely. They explain it as an extended family or community, which you can rely on to support you and to give you support. Because the time bank does not use currency, it helps to enrich lives with things people may not normally be able to afford, like language lessons or massage. This method of using human resources without money helps to shift the mindset of division and separation, thus bringing about new relationships and healthy community.

We met with some of the founders of the community exchange, Amber, Rick, and Megan, at the Noisebridge Hackerspace. They explained how the time bank was set up, and how they used it in their daily life. It was so cool to see these people who actually use it and to learn about experiences they’ve had.

“Timebanks have been helping to rebuild the informal, village economy for over twenty years. There are now over 300 communities in 22 countries that are using this (pay it forward) system to help their communities grow and thrive.”

Eventually, they explained, we won’t need to record hour-by-hour, and will just give our time and trust that it will be returned in full. For now though, the website http://timebank.sfbace.org/ is how everyone keeps track of their hours, and meets new people to work with. I loved learning about this time sharing community enterprise and how to apply it to all of our actions and to all of our lives.