Every month the coordinator of our local Farm Bureau Association and I go into our school’s fourth grade classroom to teach “Ag in the Classroom.” This morning two members of the board of directors came along to lend a hand. My husband Joe was one of them. Today’s lesson was about the many hats farmers wear.
We had five of the kids step in the hall to put on costumes and/or gather props. We had them dressed as a livestock manager (cattleman), a weather man, a scientist (plant pathologist), a heavy machinery operator and a businessman. The rest of the class had to guess what professions they were. Then the guys explained how they wear each of those hats on a regular basis.
The guys did great. I think it surprised the kids how much technology came into play for each of those jobs. It probably also surprised them that it’s not just driving a tractor and feeding animals. There are a lot of factors off-farm — even internationally — that producers have to take into consideration on a daily basis when making decisions. It got the gears turning… one of the students (MY SON!) even asked how we get commodities to China or Russia.
We start our “Ag in the Classroom” off each year with a day at the farm. At the farm, the kids rotate through several different learning stations: Wheat, Soybeans, Milo (Grain Sorghum), Beef Cattle, Dairy Cattle, Farm Machinery, Veterinarian. Then each month after, we pick one thing as a theme for our lesson. So far we’ve done pumpkins, pizza (more detailed wheat lesson since we grow a lot of wheat here), candy (yes! more specifically, cocoa, sugar beets/cane, palm kernel oil, touch on international trade) and the many hats a farmer wears.
Since farmers work hard to take care of the land, the next three lessons are spent focusing primarily on natural resources, learning how important it is to take care of our resources, soil composition and what farmers do to conserve our soil.
Barbed Wire and Bangles 