Program
Farm
The farm and farm program have always been an important part of a boy's experience at Hillside School. We are blessed to have a wonderful farm facility (20 acres of fields, pens and barns) as part of our campus (200 acres). We have an eclectic mix of animals including emus, cattle, pigs, chicken, rabbits, sheep, goats, alpacas, and llamas. We are staffed by a full-time farm director, Alf Wilson, a legendary educator and ornithologist.
Each Hillside student participates in the farm through our farm immersion program. Additionally, each student may choose to join the fall or spring Eco team as their afternoon sports program. Boarders who live in the Alumni Farm House participate in the regular care and feeding of the animals as part of their house responsibilities.
Hillside's 'hands-on/experimental' farm program includes: animal husbandry, aquaponics, organic vegetable growing, apple growing, environmental stewardship, and more.
Farm Immersion Program
The Hillside School Farm serves as a "classroom" for the farm immersion program. Each student spends at least one week during the year with his teachers and classmates learning lessons in the context of the farm environment. Faculty create active learning projects, which enhance farm resources, develop cross-disciplinary perspective, and allow boys to learn multi-dimensionally. Whether in the garden, in the barn coops and pens, or in the field, the interaction of boys with our live-stock produces an increasingly mature perspective about human and environmental ecology.
