Virtual field trip offers students behind-the-scenes tour of local egg farm
By Luke Edwards
A unique field trip last month helped crack open the mystery of egg farming for hundreds of students across the province.
Jordan’s Elmwood Farms was the latest to host one of AgScape’s virtual field trips, giving classrooms a tour of the Mullet-Koop’s egg operations during Ontario Agriculture Week. Located in Lincoln, Elmwood Farms has a mixed farm, growing about 50 acres of wine grapes along with raising approximately 11,000 egg-laying chickens and another 11,000 pullets.
For Josiah Mullet-Koop, who runs the farm with his dad Chris, the virtual field trip offered an excellent chance to teach kids about farming, open their eyes about the wide range of potential jobs within agriculture, and give them a first-hand view of everything that goes into making sure the food they eat is delicious and safe.
“It was super cool,” Mullet-Koop said. “Just bringing that experience to the kids and generating some awareness about careers and about what happens behind the grocery store shelves.”
With so many families more and more disconnected from their food sources, Mullet-Koop said the virtual field trip showed the kids all the work that goes into bringing those eggs to the grocery store.
“They don’t know that there’s so many industries, so many trained people working behind the scenes to make sure everything goes right. It’s not just a farmer, either. It’s the truck drivers, the feed nutritionists, everybody.”
AgScape’s roots go back several years. The organization provides various programs to highlight Ontario’s agricultural and food systems within the classroom curriculum.
Cassidy Cook, education coordinator for AgScape, said they do around 10 to 15 virtual field trips a year, often trying to ensure they have one during key times like Ontario Agriculture Week. She said Mullet-Koop’s enthusiasm and the work done at Elmwood Farms made it a great match.
“I knew doing an egg farm would be particularly exciting because it’s something every student can relate to. It’s a familiar food that many of them have in their fridges at home, but while many students know that eggs come from chickens, they might not understand the entire process that goes into producing them,” she said.
While this was his first time doing a virtual field trip, Mullet-Koop said he’s been involved with AgScape in the past for their thinkAG career competitions. Those events see AgScape bring in representatives from across the agricultural sector spectrum to talk to students about the wide range of career opportunities. The idea is to open their eyes that agriculture is about much more than just the classic idea of a farmer.
It’s something Mullet-Koop completely supports.
“I really enjoyed doing that, just kind of connecting with students, especially high school students. I remember being in high school, it’s hard to know what you want to do,” he said.
“You don’t necessarily have to be born into agriculture to work in it. There are a lot of jobs that make the system work.”
While there were a few technical glitches with the field trip Mullet-Koop said he had a blast doing it. There were about 1,600 students, from kindergarten to Grade 8, watching. They tuned in from cities and towns across the province.
For his tour, Mullet-Koop said they focused on the egg-laying portion of the business, and Mullet-Koop took students through the process, showing them the pack room, how he regularly checks on the hens and what he looks for to ensure they’re healthy, as well as some of the computer systems and health and safety protocols they have.
With food safety top of mind for many people, Mullet-Koop said it was also an opportunity to showcase just how seriously farmers take it.
“Part of the tour was showing them the biosecurity that I do every day and showing them how I have these barriers, how I make sure that I don’t bring anything from outside in (to the barn),” he said. “It’s probably something that most kids don’t think about.”
With a camera following him around, kids were also able to pick out things in the shots and ask Mullet-Koop what this or that piece of equipment did. He said he answered all manner of questions throughout the tour.
Mullet-Koop encouraged other farmers to get involved and consider working with AgScape to offer a virtual field trip or take part in their career competitions.
”It’s really important that we involve students and encourage students to look at agriculture because, obviously, we’re always going to need to produce food and it’s really important that we maintain a strong workforce,” he said.
“We need people who are innovative and can work on some of this new technology.”
Cook, likewise, said the tour showcases just how diverse farming is. Part of her job is to develop curriculum-based material for after the tour that allows teachers to keep the discussion going.
“For the egg farm, there are science connections around animal needs and life cycles, there’s technology connections around automated equipment. And then within the package there are also lesson plans and opportunities to explore things like data and problem solving through an egg or egg farm lens,” she said.
The other programs AgScape offers include the thinkAG career competitions, and a teacher ambassador program where specially trained educators can come in to lead a workshop in a classroom. They also have an online digital resource library that teachers can access to incorporate agriculture into their lesson plans.
For more information on AgScape and its programs, visit agscape.ca.
Comments