Photo by addie Slanger
Laura Jacobsen, 25, stands for a portrait in a greenhouse at the Homestead Organics farm outside of Hamilton. The Stanford graduate has been the adult intern at Homestead Organics since early spring to get hands-on experience in sustainability and farming. After this experience, she hopes to remain in the agriculture world, ideally in Montana.
From classroom to farm: connecting education with action Addie Slanger Ravalli Republic
A herd of 40 teenage turkeys rushed at Laura Jacobsen immediately after she opened the door of their enclosure. It was raining softly on the Homestead Organics farm outside of Hamilton, and the birds had been locked up so they didn’t get wet and muddy. “Oh hi guys. Hi,” Jacobsen, 25, said in greeting to her babies. The turkeys seemed elated to be out of their kennel and into the uncharacteristically cool August weather. Jacobsen, one of the many students who graduated into
a post-pandemic world, is an adult intern at Homestead Organics. With undergraduate and graduate degrees in science, technology and society and sustainability science — both from Stanford — the Park City, Utah, native had been itching to get some practical, hands-on experience. As a girl, Jacobsen loved animals. She had always wanted to own goats, chickens, turkeys or pigs. Her very first job in high school was at a dairy farm in Utah. “I think it wasn’t until I was older though, in my studies in sustainability, that I just kept coming back to the way food connects with everything. It connects with health, it connects
