Historical Ecology

The landscape we live in has changed dramatically over the past one hundred years. The land that the school occupies has its own unique history and this class was dedicated to discovering the story behind the story. Students researched property deeds at the town hall, did archival work at the University of Vermont and interviewed people who had lived on the property in the 1940s and 50s. By the end of the course they learned that our school, like most of Shelburne Road, was once part of our working landscape-in our case a series of dairy farms. It was only in the 1960s that the land, including the present sites of IDX and the car dealerships, was purchased by National Life of Vermont, and urban sprawl began to creep down US 7. National Life sold off several sections of land to the current owners of the property, and the building at 75 Green Mountain Drive was constructed. Our school building was occupied by a scientific testing company, a failed dot com energy venture, and, ultimately in 1997, by Vermont Commons School.