Students Build Sugar Shack
November 30, 2018
TA’s sugar shack is starting to take shape. Adjacent to the timber framed outdoor classroom just south of the student parking lot, the structure will be completed in the upcoming days — with several months of time to spare before this year’s sugaring operation begins.
With help from Mike Wells and Jere Linehan, Scott Ellis’s Environmental Studies and Outdoor Education class leveled the foundation, built the floor and supporting walls, erected the roof trusses, and began work on the cupola during classes Nov. 28-30. Lumber harvested in Thetford was donated by Thetford resident John Morton.
Sugaring on the TA campus has ramped up over the last couple of years, with Casey Huling’s Why Food Matters classes tapping dozens of trees near the western edge of the campus behind the soccer/softball field, Rose Dedam’s 7th grade class putting up buckets and collecting sap for experiments, and the TOP program joining the effort. Through the Woodbury Foundation’s generosity, the school has acquired high-quality, second-hand sugaring equipment, which will soon find a permanent home in the sugar shack.
