School Spotlights Presented by Mathnasium: Buckingham Friends School Students Learn about Global Hunger and Poverty at Heifer International Farm

Bucks County School Spotlights are sponsored by Mathnasium, The Math Learning Center at Peddler’s Village! At Mathnasium, kids are getting “Crazy About Math” by learning to think in the ways that natural mathematical thinkers do. When you step inside a Mathnasium Learning Center, you will find a positive and motivating environment filled with kids who are excited to learn and are happy to be there. Through excellent instruction driven by top-notch curriculum materials, Mathnasium significantly strengthens students’ math skills while building confidence and cultivating a positive attitude towards math. At Mathnasium, children grow to not only understand math, but to love it as well!

Mathnasium is the nation’s leading math-only learning center franchise and has over 600 locations in the US and abroad. Mathnasium of Buckingham at Peddler’s Village is proud to be an Affiliate Center of a top-performing franchise ownership group that operates three successful Mathnasium Learning Centers in Manhattan, and they are excited to now be serving the families of Central Bucks County!

This September, Buckingham Friends School 8^th grade students embarked upon the 2^nd annual trip to Heifer International Farm in Rutland, Massachusetts. Heifer International, a global organization dedicated to ending world hunger and poverty, hosts an Alternative Break program at its farm to educate students on these issues and ways they can make a positive impact in their communities and around the world.

A key component of this week-long experience is experiential learning. Students spend time in what Heifer calls the “Global Village”—a collection of structures designed to imitate daily life in various poverty-stricken areas of the world. While in the Global Village, students barter for food and supplies, build their own fires, cook their own food, and more.

This experience illustrates for students all the ways that issues of hunger and poverty can affect systemic issues of unrest in the world. One student, after spending hours with the group fruitlessly attempting to light a fire to cook a meal, remarked, “I didn’t realize how hard it is to think and work when you’re hungry.”

Students also devote time each day to agricultural work, including gardening, maintenance, and livestock chores. Finally, the group works together to develop an action plan that will guide a yearlong service project once they return home. Stephanie Thliveris, who organized the trip in partnership with fellow BFS teacher Kim Troup, said “this isn’t a trip students step away from. It’s a trip they step in to.”

Buckingham Friends School is a K-8 Quaker school located in Lahaska, PA. Please join us for an Admissions Open House on Saturday, November 12 from 10 AM-Noon.