Great Field Trip Opportunity
School Groups are Welcome At The Fair
Free Admission for school groups on Friday
TRAVEL STIPENDS ARE AVAILABLE
The Young Maine Tent
Cool Planet Resource Materials
TIPS FOR A HEALTHY FIELD TRIP
Plan your Group's Visit with the Interactive, Searchable Fair Schedule
MOFGA is excited to offer lots of fun and educational things for school groups to do at the Fair.
As you may know, MOFGA always opens the gates of the Fair to school groups of any grade level, including homeschoolers, and their teachers and chaperones for FREE on Friday.
The procedure for school groups is as follows:
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Follow the traffic signs to the school bus parking area in the North Parking Lot as you approach the fairgrounds.
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Enter through the dedicated School Group Entrance at the Rose (North) Gate.
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Sign in at the gate with an accurate head count (students, teachers, and chaperones) with the host at the School Group entrance.
That's it! There is no need to pre-register or order passes in advance.
Travel Stipends
MOFGA recognizes how tight school field trip budgets are and appreciates the additional costs incurred by school groups traveling to the Fair. We are happy to be able to offer travel stipends to help defray these costs.
Stipends are available at a rate of $0.75 per mile for full size school buses, $0.40/mile for vans, and $0.25/mile for homeschool vehicles
Your school can claim travel reimbursement in one of 2 ways:
Cool Planet Resource Materials
view and download them HERE
Climate Change is a central theme at this year’s Common Ground Country Fair, and we hope your kids will be interested in learning how the exhibitors and vendors at the Fair are helping to find solutions to this very critical problem.
We are happy to make available several resources for helping students engage with the Climate Change-focused activities and resources of this year's fair. These include an interview guide and a kid’s version Fair map, to help send kids off to the various areas where they can interview people about what they might be doing or hope to be doing to slow and adapt to the warming and climate change. Some of the fair participants may be wearing stickers that say “I am Part of the Solution to Climate Change---Ask Me How”, so they can zero in on these tables if they like. There is also an abbreviated “Climate Change Facts” list, that teachers can review with their students in advance. Teachers are enouraged to help their students create their own interview questions as well.
The materials also include a picture of a lively possible alternative neighborhood, with many climate solutions pictured, and a reproduction of the “Go Green” US postage stamp array, also full of pictured climate solutions.
Teachers should encourage their students to check in at the Climate Table, in the Social and Political Action area to ask more questions and pick up a carbon footprint activity. We hope to have some Green Sneakers kids signing people up for the on-line Carbon Challenge
Kids may also want to take part in the climate bicycle parade.
Questions, or suggestions, about this? Call 236-8732 or e-mail beedyparker@gwi.net
view and download the cool planet resources HERE
Young Maine
Young Maine – New Name in the Second Year of Common Ground’s Newest Area
In 2011 Common Ground will feature year two of the Fair’s newest area, Young Maine, a collaborative effort between MOFGA's Education Programs and the Maine School Garden Network (MSGN). Last year, the area was called the School Zone, and had just a few featured speakers. This year Young Maine will be in the same place – adjacent to the Environmental Concerns tent, close to The Common and the Youth Enterprise Zone – and will have a full speaker’s schedule. The purpose of the Young Maine area is to promote farm-to-school connections, school gardens, experiential education, and active healthy lifestyles for Maine's youth.
In addition to MOFGA and MSGN, which will provide pictures and information from a diversity of school garden programs around the State, there will be a variety of organizations on exhibit. Among these will be the Maine Academy of Natural Science –Maine’s first high school focusing on agriculture, sustainability, and forestry; Rippling Waters Farm–a non-profit, working farm that provides youth educational experiences; Maine Ag in the Classroom–the government agency responsible for the agriculture license plates which have funded an array of educational, nutrition, and gardening initiatives; the Field Academy–a Portland based high school with the mission to “make learning and life indistinguishable”; as well as the Maine School of Science and Mathematics, Maine's Waldorf Schools, the Ferry Beach Ecology School, Bryant Pond and the Tanglewood 4-H Camps, and many others.
Just a few of the exciting presenters that will be in Young Maine speaker’s tent include Neil Lash, leader at the Medomak Valley High School Heirloom Seed Project, who will describe his perspective on history, genetic preservation, and geography (in the Exhibition Hall); Ken Morse from the Farm to School Network will discuss the national and statewide development of farm to school networks as well as Maine’s exciting new Food Corps project; and Willard Morgan will explain Chewonki’s Zero Waste initiative. Other organizations that will be providing speakers include Maine Department of Environmental Protection, Maine Audubon, Cultivating Community, Troy Howard Middle School, Teens to Trails, and many others.
Another exciting addition this year is a collaborative effort between the Young Maine Area, the Children’s Area, and Kroka expeditions. Kroka Expeditions is an organization “committed to awakening in young people a connection to nature and the spirit within, and a capacity for conscious living and compassionate service.” They do this through teaching wilderness, traditional, and indigenous skills. This year, Kroka will have a table in the Young Maine area, as well as a demonstration site in the woods behind the Children’s Area. At their site they will have on going interactive demonstrations including hide tanning, bow-drill fire building, leather pouch and cordage making, baking bread on a stick, and making and sampling chaga tea.
A HEALTHY FIELD TRIP
The Common Ground Country Fair is delighted to be one of the most popular fieldtrips for Maine's students. In 2009, over 4,600 Maine school children made a school trip to Common Ground on Friday of the Fair.
Almost the entire Common Ground Country Fair is held outdoors in the open or under cover in a tent or barn. Students are sure to spend a lot of time outside and on their feet at the Fair moving from place to place.
We encourage all Fairgoers to be prepared for the elements to best enjoy a healthy and busy day at the Fair. Here are few items we suggest school children bring to the Fair:
• Water bottles. Good hydration is key to enjoying a long day outside. We have clean drinking water available on-site and special bottle filling faucets in numerous locations available to refill bottles.
• A hat, light raincoat or wind shell, and a non-toxic sunscreen. Dressing in weather appropriate clothes and wearing comfortable footwear, such as sneakers, suitable for lots of walking are also advised. Late September in Maine can dish out a wide mix of weather. We want your students to be comfortable no matter what the skies deliver.
With all Common Ground has to offer as a safe and healthy destination, we're delighted your students may be joining us. We hope they enjoy their day at the Fair.
For more information about the Fair or travel stipends, or to request copies of the Fairbook, please call the MOFGA office at 207-568-4142 or email MOFGA.