Sprouts, buds, blossoms and baby animals – it’s that time of year again for growth and development. This is also true for the Adopt a Farmer program. Looking to wrap up its fifth school year, Adopt a Farmer classroom activities are the most varied and thought-provoking ever.
While this reflects the variety of Oregon agriculture represented in Adopt a Farmer, it also is a testament to our farmers’ creativity, flexibility and excitement about participating in the program.
One of the most popular activities is the Farming Simulation game where groups of students allocate wheat, perennial ryegrass, sweet corn, green beans and strawberries across 1,000 acres and then calculate their projected income. Next, students roll the dice and their farmer reads the outcomes of their crops based on their dice roll so they can calculate their actual profit or loss. Students discuss risk and reward, local and global economics, and realize the importance of diversification in farming. One of our adopted farmers modified the crops in this simulation to include hazelnuts, canola, wine grapes, while another even made a new version for nurseries. One to reflect a cow-calf operation and decision-making is in the works!
“What’s wrong with that cow?” exclaimed a student in Marcela Zivcovik’s sixth grade classroom at Beach School in North Portland. Chris Eggert of Mayfield Dairy in Aurora was leading a graphing activity based on milk production. Students compared their four graphs and noticed one cow’s production had declined significantly over a 7-day period. Farmer Chris then helped students brainstorm reasons why her milk production may have declined. They thought she may be a smaller animal, sick or stressed. Farmer Chris talked about how he uses technology to help keep a tab on animal health.
During the initial years of the program, most farm-school pairs made Turf Buddies and played the Farm Simulation. This school year alone, we have had more than 16 different activities done in more than 40 classrooms across the state! Ranging from energy, physical versus chemical change and soil health to farm-to-table webs and Oregon ag smell tests, students are connecting what they are reading about in textbooks with the real world, on the farm.
Flexibility is one of the biggest strengths of the Adopt a Farmer program. Combining the needs of the classroom with the resources of the farm and farmer is allowing the program to grow and develop to accommodate the great diversity of Oregon agriculture with the variety of grade and achievement levels in schools across the state.