Farm Camps: Kids, Cows And Science
Thanks to Purdue Extension and the Kosciusko County Ag Awareness Committee, two groups of area children will have an opportunity to get up close and personal with the bovines that feed us.
On Thursday and Friday, June 8 and 9, up to 30 “youth just completing grades three through five” will spend a day at either a dairy farm near Milford or beef cattle farm near Silver Lake.
The “Farm Camps” will run from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., and will include a host of fun educational activities.
“This is the first year we are trying this out,” said Mikaela Conley, special events coordinator for the Purdue Extension of Kosciusko County in Warsaw. “We are trying to get the youth involved and make them aware of agriculture in our community.
“Kelly Heckaman, our director, came up with the idea. She approached me with it and it kind of took off from there. We didn’t really know what to expect, but we are excited with the response.”
Registrations for the June 8 camp at the Beer dairy farm near Milford have reached their limit, but a few open slots for the June 9 visit to the Conley cattle farm near Silver Lake remained when this article went to press.
The $10 registration fee includes snacks, lunch and supplies “for an activity where the kids make something to take home with them,” said Conley. Those who signed up by the original May 19 deadline will also receive a T-shirt.
The children will participate in an “animal nutrition activity,” according to Conley. “We are going to make our own rationed snack mix. Each ingredient will represent something the cows would eat. It is kind of just focusing on giving the cows a balanced diet.”
Lunchtime will involve a discussion of the importance of agriculture.
“We will sit down at lunch and do a worksheet together. We’ll have pizza for lunch,” Conley said, “and we will talk about where the cheese, tomatoes, meats and vegetables come from, so the kids are not thinking food only comes from the grocery store.”
The youth will also plant soybeans, extract DNA from a strawberry plant, help with farm chores, learn how to tell whether animals are healthy, make homemade ice cream and compete in farm Olympics, which will consist of several events.
“One thing we will do is make ink out of soybeans. The kids will draw pictures with that ink and we’ll talk about the by-products of soybeans,” such as milk, flour, candles, wood stain and crayons.
Visitors to the Beer dairy farm will also learn how much milk they should drink, play dairy product bingo and conduct a milk science activity.
Children visiting the Conley beef farm will play beef bingo and participate in a disease immunity activity.
Both days’ activities will include experiments with Ooblek, a corn starch and water mixture that acts like a liquid when poured and like a solid when a force is acting on it.
The name derives from the 1949 Dr. Seuss book, “Bartholomew and the Ooblek.”
“I hope it’s a fun day where kids can come out and learn about agriculture,” said Conley.
For more information, call (574) 372-2340, email [email protected] or visit the Extension office at 202 W. Main St., Warsaw.