Study economics, sociology, and history through the lens of the farm at the Eastside Historical Farm and City School.
Plant and tend gardens from different periods of human history and different parts of the world. Plant a rice paddy while studying the agriculture and social structure of ancient China.
Understand the development of modern economies by understanding changes in farming over the centuries. How have farms gone from self-sufficient homesteads to specialized producers? How is it that in one century in the U.S. we went from 75% of all people working on farms to only 1%? What does it take for most people to live in cities? What is a city, really?
Read and reflect on primary-source documents, such as Crevecoeur's 1781 classic "Letters from an American Farmer," or F.H. King's 1911 study of Chinese agriculture "Farmers of Forty Centuries."
Consider Aristotle's conception of economics -- "oikonomia" -- while examining resource flows within the farm and the farm's relationships with the environment and social world that surrounds it.
Study sustainable business while looking at what it takes to meet the "triple bottom line" in a farm or other enterprise.
Study economic principles by studying supply and demand, producer specialization, mechanization, innovation, and economies of scale as they relate to farming.
Learn to abstract and extend the lessons of the farm into the rest of the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment