First is their Agriculture Dairy Day at the Grand Rapids Children's Museum. During the day several Farm Bureau members help set up different stations about life on a dairy farm. The children that participate in the activities often bring their parents, and that's a good thing. Parents tend to ask a lot of questions, educating them as much or more than the children.
The next project is the North Godwin Harvest Festival. They have an indoor portion where Farm Bureau members present in the classroom about their different farms and raising plants and animals. The outside portion has a petting zoo and hayride. Kevin brings some FFA members and their animals for the petting zoo, and he also does a classroom presentation. North Godwin is a very diverse school and most students are from lower income homes so this is a good opportunity for them to see farm animals, many for the first time.
In the spring, Kevin helps to host the Fun on the Farm days that every first grade student - around 300- attends. The elementary students rotate through the stations learning about the different animals and what it takes to raise them. When they are done, they get an activity book some of Kevin's students put together that is filled with facts about the different animals they saw and also contains coloring pages, mazes and other activities.
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As part of the program at the Children's Museum, Kevin brings in some of the chickens his science students raise. |
Kevin thinks it is important that all students have an understanding of agriculture since this is the one thing that will affect everyone. He believes everyone should have knowledge and understanding of where their food comes from and what it takes to produce that food. Kevin says: "With media today, we are constantly bombarded with information about the food we eat - how it was raised, what is in the food and how safe it is. I encourage the students to find out for themselves how their food is produced, not to depend on news sources that may or may not be biased."
Kevin brings his FFA students along with him for a lot of these outings. He hopes that they will see the importance of volunteering in their community and how necessary it is to get the positive message of the impact the agriculture industry.
Thanks Kevin for working hard all year on these outstanding programs that educating about agriculture!