Hazon Educational Library
Curricula, sourcebooks, and other educational resources from and for the field of Jewish Outdoor, Food, Farming & Environmental Education
This open source collection includes resources produced by individuals and organizations throughout the JOFEE field. Our Educational Library, like our community, celebrates the diversity of religious observance and thought and we make every effort to accommodate the breadth and diversity of the Jewish community in our programs and curricula. We hope you will take and use what is appropriate for you and invite others to do the same.
While this resource will continue to grow and evolve, it currently includes:
• Hazon’s Publications (available online and in print)
• Curricula produced by JOFEE Fellows during their Fellowship year
• Curricula and resources shared from partner JOFEE organizations
All materials are available for free download. Most are available for use and adaptation under creative commons license. Please cite authors and organizations on any materials used or adapted from these resources.
Use the filters in the bar below to narrow your search.
Todah-Giving: Garlic Gratitude
This program reclaims our American holiday of Thanksgiving by transforming it into an opportunity to embrace HaKarat HaTov (recognizing the good, or gratitude) during a quiet time on the Jewish calendar. As the farming season winds down, this program invites participants to transition into a reflective season while literally and figuratively planting gratitude for what the growing season has brought us and what is to come in the next year. Through personal reflection, exploration of the Jewish and growing calendars, and garlic planting, participants will build connections to the earth and Jewish values
Seed Stories
This program uses storytelling as an introduction into the importance of seeds and the connections foods play to different people and cultures. Participants will have the opportunity to connect with a specific seed/plant and learn how plants and the foods created from them, can act as a living conduits for these stories. It is also an opportunity for participants to see the connection between their Judaism and a specific plant/food, or create their own new and important connection. Lastly, using seed stories as a framework within the garden offers the opportunity to create a sense of connection and continuity between multiple groups of campers.
A Sukkot Mitzvah! Welcoming Bug Friends into the Sukkah
This program is designed to foster a deeper appreciation for sukkot and for bugs. Going deeper than the idea that we build a sukkah because ?that?s what we do for sukkot?. Encouraging the invitation of guests and learning about them and appreciating them is a wonderful mitzvah. By having the participants build a miniature sukkah out of things found in nature and then inviting bugs into the sukkah, the mitzvah is upheld on a small but very important level. Fostering an appreciation for playing with nature, learning about bugs and embracing them as a part of this world is what this program is all about.
Age(s): Early Childhood, Elementary
Farm Infusions: Eco-spa
This program is an interactive hands on activity that connects participants to the ?essence? of Jewish earth based connection. Participants will have the opportunity to harvest locally grown herbs on the Pearlstone campus, infuse those herbs collected and create a homemade hand salve and/or lip balm and learn why this is a Jewish practice. Participants will leave with an understanding that everything is connected, and that the process of infusion connects us to the heart of caring for ourselves and the earth.
Wilderness Torah’s Passover in the Desert Second-Night Seder Youth Skit: The Four Children Collaborative Performance – Art & Storytelling Around the Fire
As part of Wilderness Torah's Passover in the Desert festival, for the second-night Passover seder, we are doing an off-the-page co-created celebration around the bonfire! The Passover story will come alive through the brilliant and creative minds of each of member of the village, and be experienced through the ancient art of performative storytelling.
Ba’al Taaschit Heros
In this lesson we explore waste as a concept, how nothing really ever goes away. We learn about the Jewish value of ba?al tashchit which helps us remember that being wasteful is a bad policy and has always been understood as such. And lastly, instead of dwelling on the problem of landfills or the environmental impact of using too much energy, we learn how to use two technologies that help us circumvent the often wasteful systems in which we live. We will play games that help us think about linear versus cyclical systems, we will explore cob, an alternative method for building our world with resources sourced in our own backyard, and we will build a compost pile and meet the Ba?al Tashchit Heroes that help divert tons of organic matter from the landfill. We are teaching in this lesson about closed loop systems and we are doing it in an embodied way.
Age(s): Elementary
Worms: An Exploration of Earthworms
This program is an introduction to earthworms and their necessary place in decomposition and soil health as well as looking deeper into cycles that renew the earth and where we see this in Jewish text.
Shrinking Our Waste:Solar-Powered Shrinky Dinks
This program is an interactive introduction to the environmental Jewish value of Bal Tashchit, not destroying or wasting valuable resources. Participants will have the opportunity to explore creative ways we can reduce our carbon footprint by reducing and reusing everyday materials through a solar-oven baked shrinky dink project.
Food Justice Shabbat Dinner
This program brought members of the Jewish community together for a Shabbat dinner that highlighted local and ethically sourced ingredients while educating participants about issues of food justice in our city. The dinner included sharing stories, discussion questions, and conversations about ways to help promote equal food access. We partnered with a local food justice nonprofit to help facilitate the discussion and publicize upcoming partnerships between their organization and the JCC.
Category: Food & Climate, Food Systems & Food Justice, Jewish Agricultural Traditions, Shabbat and Holidays
Age(s): Adults
Staff Training Sessions on Group Management, Questioning Strategies, and Blending Jewish and Scientific Learning
These staff training sessions focus on essential skills for the educators that work at Tamarack Camps during our Outdoor Education seasons: facilitating meaningful discussions with students, and managing groups of a variety of sizes, especially large groups (which we consider to be over 30).
Category: Group-building, Nature Exploration
Age(s): Young Adults
The Three Sisters in Kehilla: The Power of Teamwork
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.
The ECO Passover connection
This program connects children to the modern day issues of environmental plagues through an in depth look at text describing the plagues in the passover story, while also getting to appreciate the wonder of animals in a healthy eco-system through observation and touch. We will also touch on the subject of Matzah by discussing the significance of eating a bread that does not rise while making our own pita.
Torah Theater: Ancestral Wisdom in the Wilderness
This program draws from the strength of our ancestors and the robustness of Jewish tradition, while preparing for a wilderness challenge.
Age(s): B'nai Mitzvah, Teens
Shabbat: Earth-Based Technology for Young Adults in Silicon Valley
This is designed as a one evening program that frames Shabbos as an earth-based technology of connection. This collective welcoming of Shabbat is designed for young adults ages 22-39 across the spectrum of religious observance (Jewish and non-Jewish alike). This 45 minute program is crafted to lead into Shabbat dinner or another gathering and can function both as a basic introduction to Shabbat practice for those for whom it is new, and a new earth-based framework for those already at home in Shabbat ritual. Also note this program is designed based on the 8 Shields model.
Age(s): Young Adults
Hiking Through the Sefirot
This will be a meditative and metaphorical journey that will invite participants to explore the seven sefirot (emanations of god) which correlate to the seven weeks of counting the omer from Passover to Shavout.
Category: Nature Exploration, Spiritual Nature Experience
Age(s): Adults, Young Adults
