Putney Central School recently held its 4th Grade Sugaring Symposium. This event, organized by 4th-grade teacher Jen O’Donnell, was a culmination of the 4th grade's unit on maple syrup production. The event was a fantastic example of incorporating the 3 C’s of Farm to School: Cafeteria, Classroom, and Community. The unit included students tapping trees in the schoolyard, boiling sap to make maple syrup (in partnership with Dummerston's Bunker Farm), completing projects on topics related to sugaring, publishing a sugaring-themed newspaper, and hosting a maple badge design contest.

At the symposium, students shared their sugaring projects with family and community members. The projects included a variety of interdisciplinary topics, including sugaring weather, forestry and sugaring, grading maple syrup, and the history of maple sugaring. Symposium attendees, which included parents, siblings, teachers, and other community members, traveled from display to display to hear from students about their projects. Visitors also had the opportunity to taste different grades of syrup, compare real and fake syrup, and sample baked goods made with maple syrup.

The project displays were followed by a pancake dinner featuring the maple syrup that the students helped make in partnership with Bunker Farm in Dummerston, VT. Families sat down together to eat pancakes topped with syrup that came from sap collected from schoolyard trees. After dinner, The Maple Times newspaper published by the class was presented to the gathered friends and families, and students received maple badges for completing the unit. PCS food services director Steve Hed and 4th-grade paraeducator Libby North, both members of Putney Central’s Farm to School team, were also instrumental in making the symposium happen. The evening was a fun, informative and delicious way for students to share what they had learned about maple syrup and sugaring!