This week our theme was Interdependence and I found this input particularly enjoyable as we had a guest speaker from the soil association and we also visited a dairy farm.

Sammi Jones was the guest speaker from the soil association. Her talk was very informative and she explained how different types of soils lend themselves to growing (or not growing) different types of plant life. In Scotland she explained that our soil is suited to growing grass which supports looking after livestock and dairy farms.  I also learned the importance of soil as 95% of all our food is sourced from the soil. Furthermore, it takes 1,000 years for The Earth to produce just 1cm of top soil! I think this highlights the importance valuing our green spaces especially with our ever increasing urban population and the growth of towns and cities.

We also discussed how to incorporate interdependence into classroom lessons. One idea ,if the class were learning about a particular country as a topic, would be to discuss the soil found in that country and then explore the different plants grown and also the diet of the people who live there. You could also run an experiment planting different seeds from a variety of countries in the same sort of soil and see what plants grow best. Then afterwards discuss the results and get children to investigate what plants are suited to which soils and environments.

The trip to Strandhead Farm really had an impact on me and I definitely learned a lot. Strandhead is a dairy farm that is run automatically by machines. It is actually the first fully automatic dairy farm in Scotland. The animals there all live indoors. Apparently this is actually quite humane as the all of the animal’s requirements are met inside and there is no risk of them getting hurt out in the muddy fields as cows are prone to getting sore and damaged feet.The barn has air-conditioning and creates an outdoor temperature and breeze that adapts to ensure the animals are comfortable. The adult animals all live in quite a large space and the calves live in a small pen up until about 8 weeks.  The cows start getting milked at around 2 years old.

There were machines that were automatically moving around the barn cleaning and ensuring the cows were able to feed. There was even a large spinning brush that the animals could go over and get a scratch from if they wanted to. The most fascinating aspect was that the milking machines were automatic as well. The cows were able to choose when they wanted to be milked (ideally 2 to 4 times a day) and the whole process ran without human involvement. It was really interesting and quite ingenious as it is fairer on the animals and less work for the farmers. However all of these autonomous machines are very expensive but I think it is a really good system.

As a future teacher I think a school trip to Strandhead farm (or any farm) would be really valuable. I feel that it is important that children know and understand exactly where their food comes from. It is important to know about how our diet impacts the environment so that children are able to make choices about what sort of food they are going to eat e.g. locally sourced, free range eggs. It is also relevant for children to respect and appreciate the amount of effort, time and cost farmers put into providing us with food and understand it does not just magically appear into a packet.