The Coach Barn: Welcoming Educators & Guests

The Coach Barn hosts community and educational events for Shelburne Farms. Our community — both near and far — gather for the Vermont Fresh Network's Annual Forum Dinner and Vermont Mozart Festival summer concerts. After school winds down, the space comes alive with teachers who gather from around the world to explore education for sustainability and what it might look like in their classrooms and schools. Our programs inspire educators and renew their passion for teaching—to help build a healthier and more just world:

Cultivating Pathways to Sustainability

Student teams design year-long projects addressing one or more of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This program started as a collaboration among Shelburne Farms, Vermont educators Kate Toland and Lindsey Halman, the Rubenstein School of the University of Vermont, the Greater Burlington Sustainability Education Network, and Vermont Learning for the Future. Now, Cultivating Pathways has grown to include other community partners, hundreds of youth, and their teachers.

2019-20 Northeast Farm to School Institute

Vermont FEED, our Farm to School partnership project with NOFA-VT offers a year-long professional development program to support selected schools in designing and implementing effective, school-wide Farm to School programs— programs that create a culture of wellness, improve food quality and access, engage students in agriculture and nutrition education, and strengthen local food systems.

Education for Sustainability: Summer Institute

School teams spend five rich days with colleagues from around the country at an informative and restorative institute created to give you the opportunity to deepen your understanding of Education for Sustainability. This week is part conference, part workshop, part retreat. Designed to be dynamic and democratic, the Institute offers teachers the time and space to develop projects of personal interest while providing opportunities to learn from colleagues and other leaders in field of Education for Sustainability.

But the Coach Barn didn't always host educators and community members. Here's a pictorial walk back through time to illustrate the evolution of this beautiful structure.