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Room to Grow Sixth Grade Science and Humanities in the Freight Farm, with Jules Favorito and Sarah Cohen

What do kale, Hurricane Katrina, and a repurposed shipping container have in common? The answer is a thoughtful collaboration between science and humanities, led by Rivers Middle School faculty members Jules Favorito and Sarah Cohen.

In their two years at Rivers, Jules Favorito has jumped into teaching math and science as well as coaching. They started out with seventh-grade Life Science and Sustainability as well as Pre-Algebra; this year brought the opportunity to run the Freight Farm, one of Rivers’s unique classroom settings. Under former faculty member Emily Poland, the Freight Farm became a springboard for big topics related to social and environmental justice. Favorito and Cohen have continued to build an interdisciplinary curriculum around the facility.

An unassuming structure nestled behind the Lewis Building, the Freight Farm is a hydroponic farm housed in a former shipping container. With controlled climate parameters and its own water cycle, the Freight Farm operates as a growing laboratory throughout the school year, offering a unique opportunity for hands-on, exploratory learning and interdisciplinary connections. It is set up to produce leafy greens like kale and a variety of lettuces, but students also experiment with growing herbs like basil, mint, and lavender. “There’s a lot of math that goes into timing of when things are planted, harvested, and so forth,” says Favorito, who explains that a majority of the hands-on work is done by students.

Sixth graders visit the Freight Farm with Favorito once a week as part of their humanities class, and Favorito also teaches a weekly segment on themes that bridge the hands-on science and the broader humanities unit. Favorito says that working with Cohen has been a great partnership.

Cohen came to Rivers four years ago to teach sixth-grade humanities, having previously worked as a teacher in Georgia and, earlier, as an attorney with a focus in adoption law. She is inspired by the culture of learning at Rivers and by how faculty members learn alongside students.

In the interdisciplinary curriculum created by Jules Favorito (left) and Sarah Cohen (right), sixth graders use the Freight Farm as a springboard for lessons about social and environmental justice.

Cohen loves working with the Middle School students because they have so many interests. She enjoys helping them find ways to “harness their passion and energy for positive change.” The overarching sixth-grade theme is The World & Water, which provides lots of natural connections between science and humanities. Cohen views her role as helping students grapple with next-level questions, encouraging them to ask “So what?” and “Now what?” For example, Cohen explains, “One of our humanities essential questions is, ‘How can the actions of one individual positively impact the world around them?’”

In Cohen’s class, students learn how areas affected by Hurricane Katrina experienced food insecurity, leading them to further exploration about the inequalities of food distribution. Each humanities unit has a service component. For the unit on Katrina, students made no-sew blankets for a local animal shelter and created poems and holiday decorations for a food pantry in the Lower Ninth Ward. They also had a chance to Zoom with a staff member from the food pantry to hear firsthand about the neighborhood and the challenges that the local community is still facing in the wake of Katrina.

One thing I’ve learned in the Freight Farm is to step back and let the sixth graders figure it out." — Jules Favorito, sixth-grade science teacher

In Favorito’s science class, curricular themes also focus on food justice and climate justice. Students explore these topics both globally and locally. In one instance, the class submitted questions on the topic of food waste to Rivers’s Chef Michael Clancy and used his responses to inform public-service announcements, creating posters for the dining hall to raise awareness of these issues among the school community. Students also penned a poem on the subject, which they shared at an all-school meeting in February.

Favorito appreciates that, when teaching in the Freight Farm, the learning flows both ways; they note that it’s a great place to tackle problem-solving. “One thing I’ve learned in the Freight Farm is to step back and let the sixth graders figure it out,” says Favorito.

Through their work in the Freight Farm, students explore another set of essential questions: How can food help build a community? What is the relationship between food and water systems? What are the stories of people in the community in connection to food? What decisions and actions can we make to connect to our communities with/through food?

With these questions in mind, students can see the fruits of their labor translate into tangible benefits for the Rivers community. Greens harvested from the Freight Farm are primarily used by the Rivers dining hall, and often are also available to faculty and students to bring home. Once things are fully up and running, Favorito hopes to establish a faculty herb garden and resume the farmers’ markets that were offered pre-COVID.

Favorito notes that the Freight Farm, where students work with their hands and enjoy opportunities for non-traditional learning, can redefine what success in the classroom looks like. “Seeing a student in the Freight Farm,” they say, “can give you a better idea of that student’s full learning profile.”

Photos by John Hurley

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