Hidden Villa Environmental Education Program (HVEEP)
ONLINE REGISTRATION for HVEEP Programs!
HVEEP Registration Coming Soon - Mark Your Calendars! Regular FALL registration begins September 1 at 3:00 pm. Regular SPRING registration begins on October 4 at 3:00 pm. Contact the Registrar with any questions. (650) 949-8644 or hveep@hiddenvilla.org.
Look for the online registration link BELOW starting on those dates
Please review the brochure prior to registering
New Users - sign up for FARM TOUR programs here
New Users - sign up for FARM AND WILDERNESS EXPERIENCES here
Program History
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 and 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 and 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.
Online Curriculum
Hidden Villa's on-line curriculum offers classroom
teachers a framework for preparing their students for field trips
and integrating the field trip into ongoing classroom activities.
The curriculum was created by Kristina Underdal, a former fourth
grade teacher at Castro School in Mountain View, California, for
use by teachers who bring their students on field trips to Hidden
Villa. The curriculum is matched to California's academic framework
and is applicable to math, social studies, earth science and creative
writing. It also includes a bilingual (Spanish/English) section
for parents and a special section for kids. Use Hidden Villa's Online Curriculum
Core Programs
For schedule, fees, and reservation information regarding any of the following programs, please download our 2009-2010 brochure (pdf file). If you have additional questions, please contact the HVEEP Registrar at (650) 949-8644 or hveep@hiddenvilla.org.
Farm Tours
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 1/4 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 starting at either 9:15am or 11:00am. Maximum capacity is 60 children per tour. Weekend tours for families are also available through Community Programs.
Farm & Wilderness Exploration
This program's curriculum is designed for 2nd-6th grades and 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 9:30am to 2:30pm. Classes are divided into small groups, led by our trained docents. Maximum capacity is 60 children. This trip can be combined with our Overnight and Farm Chore Program.
Overnight and Farm Chore
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 mail 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
Special educational programming is sometimes offered in response to community requests. If you have an idea to try out on us, we will be happy to let you know if it can be accommodated within our standard programs, or if we think there's potential for a customized educational experience for your students. It is generally recommended to have your students take part in one or more standard HVEEP programs before they participate in any specialized programming.
Teaching Opportunities
Our programs are led in part by HVEEP volunteer guides who are specially trained by our teacher-naturalists in creative environmental teaching strategies and natural history. Training is ongoing and open to anyone age 18 and up. Contact hveepvolunteers@hiddenvilla.org for more information. We also have six Environmental Education interns who reside at Hidden Villa and provide on-site instruction as well as the in-school field trip orientation.
