Our Middle School Program

Our Agriculture Program incorporates the world of plants and animals in harmony. At WBNS we are a "teach" and "feed" site designed to guide students in the art of learning to feed oneself as a means to feed the entire community. We learn all about where our food comes from, how to grow it in a wide variety of spaces, how to harvest and prepare it for consumption, and share the bounty with our neighbors in need.  WBNS currently contributes 80% of the produce we grow onsite to Beacon of Hope, our local food bank.  There are several gardens at WBNS: the pumpkin patch, the school garden, and the student garden plots, with more to come! As a means to help students learn more about who they are, each student manages their own garden plot using personal choice from design, to planting, to daily maintenance, to harvest, to market, trade, and preservation. The animals we focus on in the middle school grades are the goats!

In the spirit of the STEAM education approach and our deep commitment to preserving the culture of this Appalachian mountain region, our Arts Program complements all subjects through the practice of establishing pathways in creativity for solving real-world problems. Additionally, our students learn a plethora of  techniques as part of their daily studies including various painting forms, pottery, yarn and needlework, sculpture, paper-making, beading, collage, mosaic, theater and more. Our weekly arts class sessions rotate with traditional hand-work in the fall, 2-dimensional drawing and painting in the spring, then 3-dimensional sculpture, theater production, and building in our summer block.  You will find that the arts are embedded throughout the entire curriculum as hands-on creation and processing is the essential thread that brings it all together!

For the middle grades, WBNS has adopted Engage NY which prides itself in preparing students to become lifelong learners and thinkers, as well as active participants in civil, community and professional endeavors.  This is a well developed program designed by the state of New York, that serves as an online library of supportive, accumulative materials for teachers to use.  Our teachers reference these guides as they develop fresh lessons for their current students. These concepts lend themselves perfectly to our continued hands-on group learning lessons in and out of doors. 

Our Outdoor Education Program incorporates the concepts of environmentalism and conscious communing with the natural world.  We engage our students in thoughtful weekly activities ( often derived from Project Wild and Coyotes Guide to Connecting with Nature, as well as concepts from the Leopold Project ) that happen throughout the "back 20" wooded campus acres that border the Pisgah National Forest and at various local trail, river, and camping sites in and around Madison County.  WBNS teaches the Leave No Trace methods and commits to its practices, on and off campus.  Middle School students progressively learn skills that allow them to experience hiking, overnight camping, river rafting, rock wall and ropes courses.

Our Middle School General Science program includes daily grade level lessons with engaging hands-on learning activities (based on the benchmarks for each of the grade levels). They explore exciting concepts including outer space, earth science, chemistry, human anatomy, biology, and more!