Farm Field Days Teaches Kids Where Their Food Comes From

Carbon County Farm Bureau hosted a Farm Field Day for all third graders in Carbon and Emery County, as well as some homeschool groups and preschoolers. The primary purpose of the event was to teach kids where their food comes from. Throughout the day, over 350 kids gathered into groups in the Fairgrounds Indoor Arena and did rotations between different stations to learn about the agricultural process.

Stations included live animals, food and activities. The kids engaged with live chicks and turkey poults, a honey station with bee keeping gear and a beehive, corn, goats, bunnies, cows and a horse. They even had the opportunity to dig their hands into dirt and snatch some gooey earthworms. At the cow station, kids met Jezebel the milk cow and her little baby calf. They learned that she needs to drink a whole bathtub of water a day in order to produce her milk! They also heard about all the different uses for cows, ranging from milk and ice-cream to Jell-O and Band-Aids. There were even fake udders to practice milking a cow. Another station kids found was “How to Grow Your Pizza,” and it talked about how long it takes to grow and harvest each ingredient of the tasty pizza kids love.

 Also in attendance was the Health Department’s Parents as Teachers program, which is a home-visiting program for families with kids from prenatal to kindergarten. Twice a month nurses will go into homes and help with family development. Amy Ruggeri, director of the program, said they also do monthly activities for the families and this event was one of them. “Our families love it because a lot of them don’t get an opportunity to see farm animals,” she stated.

By the end of the event there was no doubt that kids walked away with a better understanding of the effort and time that goes into making their food, and why each step is so critical, even down to the details of compost and branding animals.