I am seeking the Pat Cooke Fellowship to study sustainability in the Netherlands for approximately five weeks this summer. My time will consist of four weeks participating in agricultural practices on sustainable farms and one week learning about innovations to combat sea level rise and promote urban sustainability. These topics are already integral to my AP Environmental Science curriculum as two of our major fieldwork experiences–and many more learning targets–are based around sustainable agriculture and biodiversity along Boston’s coast. Additionally, these topics are relevant to Codman’s students and community; Dorchester has historically had fewer grocery stores per capita than many other parts of Boston and parts of Dorchester are at risk of coastal flooding in the next 50 years.

 

To study sustainable food production, I plan to spend four weeks living with and learning from sustainable farmers in the Netherlands through the Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms, or WWOOF (https://wwoof.net/). The Netherlands has been called a global leader in sustainable agriculture by the World Economic Forum for its sustainability practices, and it is one of the largest agricultural exporters in the world despite its small geographic size. As a WWOOFer, I would volunteer on smaller-scale sustainable farms, gaining first hand practice with sustainable agriculture methods. WWOOFers typically help farmers with their daily agricultural tasks in exchange for food and lodging. If I receive the Pat Cooke Fellowship, I plan on WWOOFing at two different sites. Site specifics depend on farmer availability and needs, but I have included descriptions of two sites that I have already reached out to, both of which appear to be accepting WWOOFers this summer:

● Agrotourism Destination (Aquaculture) – small inshore fishermen, fishing on the Dutch Wadden Sea (a UNESCO world heritage site). In the intertidal zone, these fisherpeople fish seabass and gray mullet with gillnets, and along the shore they use fyke nets to fish for eel and crab. At low tide they also hand pick oysters from wild oyster banks.

● The Weyst – a 1 hectare garden adjacent on the same property as a former Capuchin monastery. Owners strive for self-sufficiency, operating an organic vegetable garden and orchard, chicken coop, and green houses. In addition to organic gardening, the owners have invested in sustainable energy, installing a total of 220 solar panels.

 

As the AP Environmental Science teacher at Codman, I am uniquely situated to incorporate the topics of sustainable agriculture into my course. Already, many of the course’s learning targets–based on the College Board’s Course and Exam Description–explicitly require students to learn about agriculture and sustainability. Among other topics, students learn about aquaculture, impacts of overfishing, pest management, meat production, and irrigation. However, many more learning targets contribute indirectly to students’ understanding of how humans and the environment affect one another. Students learn about soil properties and water quality, and they learn about how the natural flow of matter and energy is disrupted by large scale agricultural practices. I hope that volunteering as a WWOOFer this coming summer will allow me to gain firsthand experience with these topics, so that I can provide students with examples and images from my personal experience.

 

Outside of my classroom’s walls, Codman Academy has several projects that I hope WWOOFing will help me take full advantage of in the coming school year. The school recently converted a vacant lot into a microforest and purchased an indoor hydroponics system. Over the next year, I aim to incorporate these unique resources into my class curriculum as a way of studying carbon sequestration (an upcoming project in collaboration with the Harvard Forest9), soil and water quality, and urban sustainability. WWOOFing will also allow me to strengthen the existing partnerships my AP Environmental Science class has with outside organizations focused on sustainability. This past fall, I collaborated with Farm Educator Jon Belber and Education Director Bruce Frost at Holly Hill Farm, planning a fieldwork where students learned about composting, no-till farm methods, and integrated pest management. I hope that WWOOFing this summer will give me the background knowledge necessary to prepare my students to get the most out of their time with the Holly Hill Farm Educators. Additionally, I hope to build a stronger partnership with Green City Growers, who run the Food Ambassadors program at Codman Academy. In the coming school year, I aim to align on certain topics in order to empower students in the Food Ambassadors program to share their own experiential learning with their peers. 

 

In addition to volunteering at WWOOF sites for four weeks, I would like to spend a week learning about sustainable living in urban cities and sea level rise in coastal areas of the Netherlands. Specifically, I hope to visit Amsterdam, which has become a model for urban sustainability. Often called the bike capital of the world, Amsterdam is a city in which as many as 70% of all journeys are made by bike. I am interested in exploring the transportation infrastructure that makes biking accessible as a primary mode of transit, including separate bike paths, bike parking facilities, and social norms and policies that give bikers the right of way. I plan to share this experience with students during my lessons on air pollution and urban heat islands to encourage them to think critically about transportation in the Boston area.

 

While in Amsterdam, I hope to take day trips to visit nearby cities in order to learn about water management and flood prevention. The Netherlands has a long history of water management, given that 26 percent of the country is below sea level.11 The urgency of these challenges have accelerated with rising sea levels caused by global climate change. I plan to visit Kinderdijk,12 a UNESCO World Heritage Site where canals and windmills have kept land dry for hundreds of years. To learn about modern innovations, I would like to visit the Maeslant Barrier (Maeslantkering),13 a movable storm surge barrier meant to prevent the port of Rotterdam from flooding. Nearby the Maeslant Barrier is the Keringhuis Water Management Information Centre and the Watersnoodmuseum in Ouwerkerk, two museums dedicated to the history of flooding and flood prevention. Finally, I want to visit the Sand Motor ( Zandmotor) project, which is protecting The Hague from rising sea levels. The Sand Motor dredged 28 million cubic yards of sand to the coast, providing a more natural alternative to the Netherlands’ levees and seawalls.14 Over time, the sand will be pushed into naturally forming dunes that protect the coast from flooding, preserving biodiversity and serving as a potential model for coastal cities in the United States.

 

This past fall, I organized a fieldwork to the Dorchester Shores Pavilion, along the Boston Harbor intertidal zone. There, students collected biodiversity data as part of a Stone Living Lab citizen science project, using data collection methods I had learned last summer as part of the Shoals Marine Lab’s Marine Science for Teachers program. By visiting coastal areas in the Netherlands, I hope to learn more about characteristics of intertidal zones in other parts of the world. I plan to share this learning with my students during our biodiversity fieldwork next year in order to communicate the common characteristics of aquatic ecosystems worldwide. I also intend to join a new citizen science project organized by the Stone Living Lab on storm surges and sea level rise, and I hope that learning about flood protection in the Netherlands will help me communicate to students the global impact of climate change on coastal areas.

 

Project Goals:

● Develop my own background knowledge of sustainable agriculture through practice alongside experienced farmers. I plan to document my learning about sustainable farming techniques, transportation infrastructure, and flood control practices through photos and video. I will share these images and videos both in lessons throughout the year and in real time via a teacher instagram account or other blogging platform.

● Incorporate professional learning into Codman’s AP Environmental Science curriculum through personal examples and experiential fieldwork. I plan to work with my supervisor, Science Instructional Coach Ed Yoo, to develop curriculum and fieldwork based on my experiences as part of my summer curriculum planning deliverables. 

● Strengthen and develop new partnerships with local farmers and sustainability focused organizations. I plan on collaborating with Partnership Director Chetna Naimi to explore new ways to incorporate Green City Growers and the Food Ambassadors Program into my AP Environmental Science class. I also hope to meet with the Farm Educators at Holly Hill in August of 2023 in order to reflect on past fieldworks and discuss ways to improve and expand the experience for students.

 

Summary of Impact

By studying sustainability in the Netherlands, I aim to enrich my AP Environmental Science curriculum in several key ways. First, I hope to expand my own background knowledge and experience with these topics, so that I can create lessons based on personal experience rather than generic examples. Drawing on my own experiences will allow me to tell students a more compelling story that connects the science behind environmental issues with the communities and people that they affect. I also want to gain the experience needed to help students engage in actual sustainability practices at the school, taking advantage of our unique resources like the microforest, hydroponics system, and Food Ambassadors program. Increased experience with sustainable practices will also allow me to reflect critically on the fieldwork experiences I planned this past year, and I hope to collaborate with partners at Holly Hill Farm and Stone Living Lab in the coming fall to create more meaningful experiences for students. Finally, I intend to share stories from abroad in order to impress upon students the global nature of climate change, particularly among coastal areas facing rising sea levels. I hope that with this understanding, students will think more critically about their own local government’s response to climate change and be inspired to imagine ways for innovations and solutions to be shared across political boundaries. 

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Read Nick's full annotated and referenced application here, his Bio, and his Report