“The mission at Turn Back Time is to help people recognize nature’s ability to heal and teach through educational programs, nature play, and farm education.” says Executive Director, Lisa Burris. And when WPI students conduct their Interactive Qualifying Project (IQP) at Turn Back Time’s Farm Stay Project Center, the bounty of healing, teaching, and environmental benefits seems endless.
The Turn Back Time IQP provides valuable betterments to the 58-acre nature-based education center in Paxton, MA. To date, WPI students have completed projects including a rainwater catchment system, mobile farm stand, dry creek bed, natural history museum, vernal pool curriculum, field guides, and a weather station garden structure.
“A side benefit of the WPI Farm Stay Project is that many in the community know WPI, and we feel our program is respected so much more because of the relationship we have with the university.”
Lisa Burris
Executive Director
Turn Back Time
For WPI students who need a local on-site IQP or want to positively impact a community closer to home, the 7-week live in term offers an abundance of knowledge and hands-on experience around renewable energy, climate resilience, organic food production, sustainable forest management, and more.
Also reaping the benefits of the Turn Back Time, Farm Stay Project are the children and at-risk youth who attend the farm’s programming. As WPI students conduct their day-to-day IQP work at the farm, program attendees get to see real-life role models using STEM to help protect and save the environment.
The most impactful benefit of the Turn Back Time, Farm Stay Project however goes to the environment. If just one environmental stewardship spark is lit in the heart of a passionate program attendant, the benefits of this particular IQP to the environment will assuredly be felt for generations to come.
In gratitude for the WPI Farm Stay Project, Burris recently shared, “We are so grateful to Professor Elisabeth Stoddard for serving as the IQP director and for how the students from WPI have positively impacted the farm.”