Hazon Educational Library: Elementary

This lesson makes a connection between how both plants and people live in community. On the farm, plants and other organisms are giving and receiving help from one another all of the time. This is reciprocity. Companion planting is the technique of sowing two crops together for a specific purpose, often pest control, space use or yield maximization. Native Americans have been planting the Three Sisters (corn, beans and squash) in one plot for generations. Not only does this trio help each other grow and use nutrients efficiently, but they have higher yields when planted together, and form a nutritious diet. People also need each other: to learn, to pray and to live a spiritual life. When we work in chevruta (learning partners) or are part of a minyan (prayer group), everyone involved can benefit from the group. We are individuals, but our communities are greater than the sum of their parts.

Learn about and enact the value of peah through harvesting a delicious summer treat and decide how much to donate. Share the remaining bounty with the camp community. Experience the joy in working hard and sharing the abundance (through recognition in the dining hall, working with a community organization, and leaving camp for a field trip)

This program offers an alternative to a traditional Tisha B?Av program (where participants typically learn about the destruction of the first and second temples). In this program, the instructor uses an age-appropriate book as a jumping off point to teach about an important Jewish figure who was responsible for the construction of the first temple. Hands-on activities then explore the themes in the book and allow participants to discover JOFEE connections and take-aways.

This activity allows students to get a hands-on experience with real feathers and practice using them creatively while thinking about an important Jewish and worldly symbol.

This program offers a guided cooking workshop that integrates Jewish food practice and provides tools for families to use at home.

This program uses worms to explore how all of G-d's creatures work together to create a functioning garden/society/world. Participants will get the chance to explore the diverse ecosystem of healthy soil, specifically worms, and how it is because of this diversity that our garden can thrive. Students will also draw connections to their own differences between classmates, other community members, etc to see how all folks have a role to play creating a happy world. Using a simple prayer, participants will be able to connect how a praise to G-d for ?varied creatures? can apply to both humans and animals/insects.

The Topsy Turvy Bus facilitates rethinking the current, nonrenewable, and often damaging systems of the world we live in. This summer's theme was focused on water usage and conservation. Through hands on activities, the programs aims for participants to understand how we can keep our resources in the cycle. Specifically, this curriculum touches upon the carbon cycle, the soil cycle, and the water cycle. This station was one stop on a 4 station rotation.

This program is an introduction to Jewish agricultural law. Pairing them with sustainable agriculture projects offers a taste of what it might have been like for our ancestors to follow these laws. Participants will have the opportunity to farm in small groups and to learn how many of our earth based laws also help us help our communities today.

This program can be incorporated into holiday programs for a harvest holiday (Sukkot, Passover, or Shavuot) especially during a Shmita year. It provides an interactive introduction to Shmita, including the basis of Shmita in Jewish text and the connection between Shmita and sustainable agriculture.

Cob is a structural composite of earth-based materials: clay, sand, straw and water. People all over the world have used cob for centuries to sculpt buildings by hand. Learning to build with earth-based materials can broaden participants' understandings of how the earth provides everything that humans need to live. Mixing cob, making cob bricks, or applying cob directly to a larger structure is an embodied means for empowering participants to make things on their own and to source materials sustainably. This lesson also touches on the importance of place in natural building, with a map exploration about how different cultures build with different things based on their environments.