News & Updates

Meet the new Merry Lea team members!

Four days a week at noon, a small caravan leaves from the Farmstead Barn. There are two wagons, three teachers and a gaggle of 14 preschoolers wearing matching backpacks and rubber boots. The children take turns pulling the wagons which carry supplies for the day.

Luke Gascho, former director of Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center of Goshen College, is the recipient of the 2019 Howard Michaud Award. The Environmental Education Association of Indiana announced the selection November 1 at McCor mick’s Creek State Park during their annual conference.

Laura Pontius, Albion, Ind., has found her legal career moving increasingly toward public education. This fall, her speaking gigs will include teaching Environmental Policy and Politics in Merry Lea’s Sustainability Leadership Semester (SLS).

This September, a forest clearing near Merry Lea’s Kesling Wetland will be home to a nature preschool four days per week. Tree trunks will serve as seats and an open shelter will keep off the rain.

Imagine you were kept in the same room 24 hours a day with nothing in particular to do except eat. Human beings would experience a rapid decline in both physical and mental health under these circumstances. Most farm animals live limited lives like this.

Stephen Lowe approaches agriculture with an appreciation for the complexity of the profession and an educator’s eye. 

What’s a molecular biology and biochemistry major doing in Merry Lea’s Agroecology Summer Intensive (ASI)? Cailin Smith, a rising junior from Knightstown, Ind., says she joined the group because a lot of biochemical research is agricultural.