Tumbleson Farm Becomes Ag Classroom This Weekend (5-20-05)
For the better
part of a month, students in Thad Tumbleson’s first grade
class have been preparing for a weekend farm tour in Martin County,
Minn. Yet it’s the students’ parents who are surprised
at the education they receive. NCGA First Vice President Gerald
Tumbleson and his family—wife Joanne and sons Thad, Trent
and Trace—along with other farmers in the area will open their
farms to provide a hands-on learning experience about agriculture.
“When we started
this, we thought it was the kids who we were teaching,” said
Gerald, “but what we’ve learned is that it’s the
parents. They had no idea what agriculture is about.”
Thad Tumbleson teaches
in Mahtomedi, a Twin Cities suburb about three hours from the family
farm in Sherburn. The farm tour grew out of a project he had when
completing his Master’s degree at the University of Minnesota.
“My final project was to bring agriculture to an urban area.
So I developed this curriculum around that.”
For the last three or
four weeks, Thad has incorporated his agriculture lessons into math,
language arts and science units to teach the students what farmers
do in terms of planting, animals, and manure. “When they get
out to the farm what they are learning sticks pretty hard. We talk
about plants and how they grow and circle of life such as how manure
is used to fertilize plants that are used as feed,” he said.
Yet it’s the parents
whose eyes are opened. “Most of the parents are pretty flabbergasted
when they see what farming entails,” he said. “When
they see the technology involved and amounts of dollars it takes
to run a farm they get pretty blown away.”
Joanne Tumbleson echoes
her son’s comments. “Thad started this as a way to teach
the kids about farming and where their food comes from. What we’ve
learned over the years, though, is that it’s the parents who
are really in need of the education.”
Their lessons begin around
10 a.m. tomorrow and include a tour at Jerry and Lori Ploehn’s
farm, a visit to a horse breeder, a dog breeder and an elk breeder,
as well as a stop at a dairy farm and a tour of Tumbleson’s
hog operation. Throughout it all the students and parents get hands
on demonstrations about food and farming practices.
“We do a corn and
soybean demonstration about foods from these crops,” Joanne
said. “Each child gets a seedling of corn sown about 10 days
ago and one sown about four days ago. They can see the corn seed
and the plant that grows from it. We also show them all the foods
corn and soybeans go into.”
Fun is a big part of
the lesson, she said. Both the kids and adults get to climb in the
corn bins. “We’ve been hauling corn to get a 50,000
bushel bin empty enough to crawl in, climb the ladder and jump on
the corn. First the children get several turns and then the parents
start getting in line.”
“When we visit
the horse farm, I try to tell the people that this is what organic
smells like, because organic growers use fertilizers also and this
is what it smells like. At the hog confinement demonstration, Trace
and Trent tell the kids they are finishing hogs to become pork chops.”
Additionally they explain
to the children the value of hogs to the family farm. “We
use the waste into the land to fertilize our crops and it is natural
and it is an extremely valuable product. That is why we raise the
pigs—it’s for the fertilizer—as well as the fact
that it is an employment opportunity for our sons.”
Rain or shine, these
are lessons the kids don’t want to miss. “They are suburban
kids. Almost none of them have grandparents who farmed,” said
Joanne Tumbleson. “They are city kids and they don’t
know the smell of a pig or the smell of a cow, so they don’t
know where food comes from and what food smells likes.”
What do the Tumbleson’s
get out of all of this? “The hugs,” says Joanne. “Every
single family who comes gives a hug—that’s the best
part!”