The world needs creative, innovative and courageous young people who can connect, collaborate and act. We know that youth may only be 20% of the population but they are 100% of the future. The time is now to let them share their dreams and design the future they want to see.
Students will be taken on a journey to become eggsperts discovering how the humble egg is good for both their brain and body. They will be given the chance to become an eggspert starting with dressing for the part (watch this space). Then the real challenge will begin! They will be put to the test as an eggspert. The challenge is for them to determine if the egg should be stamped as consumer quality and put into the egg carton or not.
Recognising only the very best eggs reach your fridge students will perform a scientific test using a haugh machine and a yolk colour chart to determine if the inside of the egg is of the highest of quality.
Eggs provide a number of minerals and nutrients which are good for both the brain and body.
Let’s discover why they are so good for kids?
Eggs contain choline which helps in the production of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which is involve in nerve and brain functioning and memory. Without it our bodies and brain just wouldn’t function properly.
One serve of eggs provides around a third of the recommended dietary intake of folate for children. Folate is essential for the growth and maintenance of healthy cells. Ideal for those growing bodies!!
One serve of eggs provides around half the recommended dietary intake of vitamin A for children. Vitamin A is essential for growth and eye health. That means if we have a eyes or a body we should eat eggs!
Eggs contain Zinc which plays a role in cell division, cell growth, and wound healing! Exactly what active and growing bodies need especially if their prone to needing bandaids!
We are looking forward to the newly minted eggsperts going home and educating their friends and family about why eggs are good for the body and brain.
A passion to link consumers with producers … to promote public understanding of farming, and the interconnectedness of health and well-being and the agricultural sector … is the driving force behind the role of the Young Farming Champions (YFC)
Our YFC help agriculture to build its fan base and encourage young people from all walks of life to join them and follow their career pathway into the agriculture sector. Since 2010 they have being doing this very successfully through The Archibull Prize.See our 2017 Annual Report here. The Archibull Prize is a world first. A competition that uses art and multimedia to engage school students in genuine farm experiences, and gain knowledge and skills about the production of the food they eat, the fibres they use and the environment they live in. Young Farming Champions (YFC) participate in The Archibull Prize by visiting and mentoring schools, sharing their stories and insights into contemporary farming practices and inspiring students to consider careers in agriculture.
Over the past three years the YFC have been spreading the agriculture love far and wide as keynote speakers at conferences, delivering TED talks and running events and workshops across the country.
In 2018 our YFC will be participating in a smorgasbord of events to hone their skills and deliver their unique style of engaging and inspiring future generations of agriculture ambassadors and the best and brightest to join the sector
I cant think of a better way to kickstart 2018 than a partnership with the agriculture education team at the Sydney Royal Easter Show. In the lead up to the show we will be inviting Primary School students to sign up to meet the YFC team on Primary School Preview Day in The Food Farm. Students meeting the YFC will participate in hands on workshops for the Cotton, Wool, Horticulture and Egg Industries. They can also chat to YFC and farmer Tim Eyes who will be the star attraction at the Thank a Customer workshop.
Get a taste of Primary School Preview Day here
Secondary students will also get the opportunity to hear from and meet the YFC at the Careers in Ag workshop in Cattle and Horse Experience Arena
We look forward to profiling our Event Activation Team over the next 10 days. Get a sneak peak and meet them here
The Food Farm at the 2012 Sydney Royal Easter Show has a great new look this year and Food Farm coordinator Jenny Hughes and her team are discovering some bizarre food facts myth-conceptions as they talk to the children they are meeting and working with. One being it appears cows may lay eggs
Before we get into that Art4agriculture is particularly proud that a large number of the 2012 Archibull Prize cows are taking centre stage in the Food Farm. Check them out is this very brief video I whizzed up with some Wiggles music ( thx Wiggles)
Now back to problem of food and where it does and doesn’t come from.
The Food Farm is “the key education pavilion at the Sydney Royal Easter Show, which tells the story of where food comes from and the importance of farmers to everyday life. Created for pre and primary school children, their families and showgoers in general, there is something for everyone to learn in the Food Farm. Children can grab a spade and dig in the garden to discover what vegetables grow underground or put on a blindfold and guess the variety of apple you are eating. You may go to the Grain Shed to mill your own grain and deliver it to the Bakery before putting on your apron and rolling-out some pastry for a pie. Inside the Egg Dome, children will learn about egg production and some of the amazing ways to cook with eggs or take a stroll through the virtual chicken farm to discover where our chicken meat comes from. Junior Farm Hands will love listening to the animal carers talk about how to care for farm animals in Livestock in the Round and allows children and their families to ask their own questions or pat large animals that are a feature of the Sydney Royal Easter Show.”
As I mentioned the Archies take pride of place at the Food Farm entrances as does a very big orange tractor that kids can sit it in and heaven forbid blow the horn which they do quite a bit as you can imagine.The signage is magnificent
and there are lots of great education tools to help the community learn more about where there food comes from including the Egg Dome
You will note this board does not ask the question. What animal lays eggs? It is interesting the board does ask if roosters lay eggs. I remember having a discussion at a party where not one adult (who wasn’t a farmer) had heard of the word hen. Every adult at the party thought an adult chicken was called a chicken and hence all chickens laid eggs. Now I have chickens I know that isn’t true, but not everyone is as lucky as me to have the hands on experiences and this is leading to some bizarre knowledge gaps in the community
These displays are pretty impressive stuff aren’t they?
Lots of info on safety and storage
and eggs and culture and there is more. The last thing I thought when I looked at these impressive displays was that Jenny and her team would discover that kids are very confused about where eggs actually come from
Jenny said it appeared the kids go this impression that eggs and dairy products came from the same animals from learning about the Food Pyramid and eggs and dairy are on the same line. Mmh am I missing something here?
I did a little Google research and apparently this is quite a common misconception amongst adults as well. Apparently some supermarkets aren’t helping by selling them with dairy items because they tend to group foods together by both storage and usage. In this case, both eggs and dairy must be stored under similar conditions, and are most often used with one another in recipes, so it’s apparently logical to locate them in the same part of the store for customers to find.
Another source says” eggs are often confused as both a form of dairy and of meat, but in reality, they are neither. Because eggs are an animal by-product, just like milk, many people categorize eggs as dairy. However, dairy is very specifically designated as the by-product of the mammary glands of mammals like cows or goats. Essentially dairy is any milk or milk-made product, such as butter or ice-cream. However, eggs are not meat either. Eggs are the foetal form of a mature animal, and are considered their own entity in and of themselves, than meat. Eggs are eggs and meat is meat.” But eggs are not a food group are they? They are protein, the food group with meat in it.
All I can say is its time to get back to the basics and give our kids some real hands on experiences and well done to the RAS team behind the new look Food Farm for giving next gen the opportunity to have fun and engaging true to life experiences. The research shows shows there is an 85% uptake rate when both theory and practice are combined compared with just the theory alone at 5%. ((Joyce and Showers 1995) 1. Wow!
But lets not stop there – Come on government lets get agriculture embedded in the curriculum from K to 12. Lets make sure we have engaged, knowledgeable and science literate students making wise decisions for the planet going forward because there is going to be a lot more more people to house,feed and clothe with less land, water and energy and its a tough ask to expect the dairy cows to produce not just milk but eggs too
BTW – Finding the Food Farm at the Sydney Royal Easter Show
By the way if you came to this page for information on who lays eggs.
The term chicken is used to refer to the bird itself. The female chicken is called a “hen” and the male chicken is called a “rooster” . Therefore hens lay eggs which if fertilized by a rooster will hatch to become chicks.
1. Joyce, B., & Showers, B. (1995). Student achievement through staff development:
Fundamentals of school renewal (2nd ed.). White Plains, New York: Longman.
Students will be taken on a journey to become eggsperts discovering how the humble egg is good for both their brain and body. They will be given the chance to become an eggspert starting with dressing for the part (watch this space). Then the real challenge will begin! They will be put to the test as an eggspert. The challenge is for them to determine if the egg should be stamped as consumer quality and put into the egg carton or not.
Recognising only the very best eggs reach your fridge students will perform a scientific test using a haugh machine and a yolk colour chart to determine if the inside of the egg is of the highest of quality.
