Founded in 1970, Hidden Villa’s Environmental Education Program (HVEEP) has served thousands of children each year through our two core programs and other educational offerings that are developed in response to community needs. Beyond the wonderment/exhilaration of hiking alongside a creek, milking a cow or goat, or harvesting garden vegetables, guidance and instruction by our on-site naturalists and community educators provide focus on environmental education. Through age-specific activities, children learn about ecology, natural history, and energy systems/cycles. The unique teaching techniques of the Hidden Villa Environmental Education Program strike a balance between scientific investigation and feelings of wonder, awareness, and appreciation.

 

“It is an absolutely perfect learning/hands-on environment for children” (3rd grade teacher)

“When I’m in Hidden Villa I have freel like I have so many questions and I want to know the answers” (4th grader)

Core Programs:

Contact us for schedule, fees, and reservation information regarding any of the following programs: (650) 949-8644 - hveep@hiddenvilla.org

Farm Tour
The Farm Tour is a sensory introduction to a working farm. Most groups range from 2-7 years old, although tours can be arranged for older children, special education, adults, and other groups. For most children this 1-1/2 hour tour is a first-time learning experience where they can taste a root, touch a wool sweater on the hoof, find out what cows give them, and begin to understand the importance of the farm and garden in their lives. Farm Tours for organized groups run Tuesday through Friday. Weekend tours for families are also available through Community Programs.

Farm & Wilderness Exploration
This program starts with a two-hour classroom orientation by Hidden Villa naturalists a week before the field trip. Using a slide show, music, role-plays, and hands-on teaching stations, the concepts and attitudes to be experienced at Hidden Villa are presented to the children.
During their field trip at Hidden Villa, the children learn the importance of the farm and wilderness to our urban environment. They may take leftover lunches to the compost pile, compost to the garden, and garden plants to the animals who will turn them into wool sweaters, milk, eggs, or hairbrushes. Following Adobe Creek up into the wilderness, they explore a variety of plant communities, learn about food webs, predator/prey relationships, animal adaptations, and stewardship of the land.

These field trips last approximately 5 hours, from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.. Classes are divided into small groups, led by our trained docents. This trip can be combined with our Overnight and Farm Chore Program.

Overnight & Farm Chores
A Hidden Villa overnight allows students to build cooperation skills while discovering the wonder of the nighttime world at Hidden Villa. Participants stay in heated cabins at the Hidden Villa Hostel and cook their own meals in the Hostel kitchen. Teachers may schedule a one or two-night overnight to extend their Farm & Wilderness Exploration trip in to a longer, more intense experience.

All meals are arranged by parents and teachers. We ask that parents serve as chaperones at all times on the overnights.

Scholarships
Limited funds are available. Inquire when making a reservation. We offer scholarships for our environmental education programs, according to the need of the school. While there is some flexibility; the main criterion for awarding scholarships is the number of students in your class who are participants in a subsidized lunch program.

In addition to scholarships, we are happy to give you information about how other schools fund their field trips to Hidden Villa.

Special Programs
Hidden Villa Environmental Education Program staff has also to needs and requests of local schools by delivering some special programs.

Castro School “Multi-visit” Program for fourth and fifth graders from Mariano Castro School in Mountain View combined three field visits with year-round curriculum integration in the classroom, culminating in an environmental play which was presented at the school. The program continues for a second year, with first year’s fourth-graders returning as fifth-graders.

Sustainability curriculum presented alternative-energy and sustainability studies through comparative experiences on hiking trails, in the garden, and at the Wolken Education Center (a model of green building design). We were able to offer the program to students from Duveneck School and Escondido School in Palo Alto, also from Castro School in Mountain View.

Half-day gardening program gave second graders from Argonaut and Foothill Elementary Schools in Saratoga the opportunity to spend half a day working exclusively on garden projects before returning the following year (in their third grade) to extend the experience on our regular Farm and Wilderness day.

Teaching Opportunities
Our programs are led in part by HVEEP volunteer guides who specially trained by our teacher-naturalists in creative environmental teaching strategies and natural history. Training takes place in September and January. We also have six Environmental Ed interns who reside at Hidden Villa and provide on-site instruction as well as the in-school fieldtrip orientation.