Imperial Valley kids get “farm smart”

The University of California has reinvented the old-fashioned school field trip to the farm by creating a series of programs in the Imperial Valley that make a tangible connection between food production and people who eat.

In an age of fast-moving video games and quirky television, watching alfalfa grow may not capture the imagination. But learning that alfalfa is ice cream in the making by planting alfalfa seeds, witnessing cows eat it and enjoying an ice cream cone brings home the message.

Participants may start the day thinking corn and tomatoes come from the grocery store, but munching chips and salsa at a “fiesta” with music and dance, then dashing through a corn maze, picking fresh ears of corn off the stalk and harvesting chili peppers resonates even with longtime city dwellers.

“My students come away very excited,” said Pauline Zinn, a teacher at Martin Luther King, Jr., Elementary School in El Centro who has brought classes of second- and third-graders to the program. “The field trip is fun, but it also provides a science or social studies lesson. It’s wonderful.”

The curriculum for these field trips, titled "Farm Smart," was developed by Nancy Wade, an educational outreach coordinator at the UC Desert Research and Extension Center near El Centro. Wade uses the farm at the research facility to reach out to children, helping them identify more closely with the sources of their food and appreciate the renewable environmental resources that make it available to them.

“We tell the kids, ‘We want you to touch the plants,’” Wade said. “Kids are always told, ‘Don’t touch.’ We have lots of hands-on activities. We want them to be a part of the education.”

One resource that gets a lot of attention in the Imperial Valley is water. Wade created “Water Out West” (WOW). The students gain an understanding about the importance of the Colorado River and its impact on the western United States. They try their luck at starting a siphon hose – those that are successful (not many) receive the Golden Siphon Award. The activity is popular with school children from kindergarten through high school.

“We teach them before going out in the field that water in this valley doesn’t just ‘happen.’ It travels from the Rocky Mountains through a river that is the lifeblood of the desert, into canals and irrigation ditches before reaching our crops,” Wade said.

Wade offers five field trips at the UC Desert Research and Extension Center as the seasons change. Each one, running from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., incorporates music, singing, food tasting, a hay ride and harvesting produce to take home. The lessons meet many areas of state-established content standards for public schools. Teachers receive hand-outs and follow-up activities for their students. Cost is $2 per child for supplies and food for tasting.

Wade is taking reservations for the following school field trips:

• Alfalfa is Ice Cream in the Making, Oct. 3 to 14
• Chips and Salsa, Oct. 25 to Dec. 14
• Veggie Ventures, Jan. 16 to March 30
• Insects – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, April 14 to 27
• Water Out West (WOW), May 2 to 25

The mild Imperial Valley winter climate draws thousands of “snowbirds,” or winter visitors, from all over the nation. Wade saw an opportunity to educate older Americans who may not be familiar with California agriculture.
Wade hands out flyers at RV parks and makes presentations in senior centers about Imperial Valley agriculture and the UC Desert Research and Extension Center. This winter, she will set aside 22 days to host groups of snowbirds at DREC. The Winter Visitor program runs from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and includes a lunch featuring vegetables grown in the Imperial Valley. The cost is $10 per person.

“We have a wonderful group of volunteers helping to put on these programs,” Wade said. “Without their support, it wouldn’t be possible.”

Since it's inception in 2001, the program has been offered to 24,000 learners of all ages, 7,500 last year alone. For more information about the DREC educational programs, contact Nancy Wade at nlwade@ucdavis.edu, (760) 356-3067.

(August 2005)

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