This week, Shelburne Farms hosted a farm-based education forum that brought together farms, educators, and tourism enterprises. The event was a great reminder that visiting Vermont's farms and agricultural lands is a chance for beautiful sightseeing and good food, and it's also a learning experience. Many farms are particularly focused on creating learning opportunities for children. Farms across the state pair with schools, summer camps, libraries, nature centers and other programs to open their doors for educational experiences, as well as developing activities for day visitors outside of a formal program.
Along with discussing the logistics of creating educational programs for young learners (what information do parents need before the trip? what are the safety guidelines to go over? is there a bathroom?) forum participants talked about offering hands-on experiences to keep these visitors engaged in learning throughout the trip. Many people shared examples of how simple those activities can be:
- Drawing a map - with clipboards, paper, and colored markers, children can map their visit, reinforcing what they learn and also creating a record of the trip they can share with parents and friends.
- Stamping a passport - with stamps or stickers showing what parts of the farm have been visited
- Sitting on the tractor - with enough supervision, climbing up to the tractor seat can be better than playground equipment
- Getting a pumpkin's eyeview - aka hiding under the garden fabric before moving on to pumpkin picking
- Identifying herbs - sight, smell, and taste can be guides in this matching game in the garden
- Connecting seeds to plants - students may know what their vegetables look like, but matching them with the seeds they began as can be trickier
- Dancing the waggle dance - learning how bees show where to find food
- Helping with chores - simplified versions of chores like carding wool or collecting sap from buckets
The Project Seasons book from Shelburne Farms gives examples of almost 150 different activities, and the list of their school field trips hints at the range of activities possible, too.
What are your favorite farm visits? What activities do they offer? Let us know! @DigInVT
