“A large part of my role is managing our budgets, grant-writing and working to enable the success of our students and various projects,” Byrnes said. “Our entire team and club work to educate students about food system topics like food waste, nutrition and sustainable agriculture, and advocate for food justice and issues like food insecurity.”
Shiels runs the community supported agriculture (CSA) program. Woolley managed a high tunnel or greenhouse this fall and assisted with composting. They also take shifts weeding, cultivating and harvesting.
“When I was younger, I distinctly remember walking by the greenhouses on campus and seeing a ‘Student Farm at Penn State’ banner and I instantly told myself I wanted to learn about that when I got to Penn State,” Shiels said. “Luckily, one of my best friends, Ava Klink, is the communications specialist for the Student Farm and I learned a lot about the farm from her. She encouraged me to apply and I’m so happy I did.”
Woolley said he decided to join the farm because of his academic interests in political ecology and agrarian studies.
“I wanted to get involved with agriculture to ground my research in actual lived experience," Woolley said. “Additionally, I'm always outdoors and active, so getting to work with the soil was perfect for me.”
Shiels said she loves the connections she has made with other interns while weeding together for hours, while Woolley said he enjoys seeing how the landscape changes between seasons.
“Everyone in the club comes from different majors and colleges, a variety of hometowns and ages, and we all gather around our love of the environment, food and sustainability,” Byrnes said. “We all bring something different to the table in an amazing way and our goal for the club is to provide an opportunity for anyone to follow their interests related to agriculture and food.”
Shiels said the student farm helps give her a break from academic pressures.
“My work at the farm has given me much-needed breaks from my academic work throughout the semester,” Shiels said. “If I had a stressful week with assignments, it was always a big stress-reliever to be able to do manual labor for a few hours each week.”
Byrnes, Shiels and Woolley perceive a strong connection between geography and farming.
“Geography has taught me about the complicated world we live in, and the field provides an interesting perspective of studying interactions between humans and the environment,” Byrnes said. “So many of my classes touch upon topics in the food system, and my experience with farming has allowed me to apply my classroom learning.”
Woolley said he also sees a connection to his academic work.
“Working on the farm has helped me contextualize geographic concepts learned through class, such as landscape, social-ecological systems and sustainability,” Woolley said. “I have become more deeply aware of the ways in which social systems and the physical landscape are interconnected, and how features of or changes in the landscape can affect those social systems.”
For Shiels, the main connection between geography and farming is that people from all over the world and from different cultures and races participate in the same farming techniques.
“A woman in the Gambia is row-covering her Kohlrabi; a man in Venezuela is hand-weeding his lettuce; a young adult in England is learning to trellis their tomatoes,” Shiels said. “These are all tasks I have done during my time at the student farm and this idea emphasizes how interconnected the world can be.”