On a Friday morning in Jennifer Shinners’ second grade classroom at the Kenneth A. Brett School in Tamworth, students have a wealth of questions for Clay Prill.
“My aunt has two pigs … and their names are Sausage and Bacon,” one girl says. As the class giggles over the names, she continues. “And I don’t know if it’s weird, but they fight over the food.”
“Well, they’re pigs,” says Prill, the owner of Zero Mile Farm in Tamworth. “And there are no rules in the pig pen.”
Prill is visiting the class as part of UNH Cooperative Extension teacher Joy Gagnon’s weekly Nutrition Connections class. For Gagnon’s fall 2017 classes, she’s invited local farmers and food producers to come in and talk to elementary school students about how they grow food, ways to eat healthy and, well, just about any topic that curious first and second graders can come up with, from how many eggs a hen can lay in a day to what dogs do on farms.
Sometimes, Prill asks the questions. “How many eggs can a hen lay in a day?” he says to the class. Students raise their hands excitedly.
“One?” someone asks tentatively.
“No, it’s way more than that!” someone else says.
“No, he’s right: one per day,” Prill says.
The morning’s lesson is on protein foods. Zero Mile Farm, which Prill owns with his brother, Ean, produces free-range eggs, organic pastured meats and other proteins, and so he’s here to talk about the different foods students can eat to get protein and answer any questions that might come up.
“It’s fun to talk with the kids. It allows them to ask questions they wouldn’t have the opportunity to ask. And we have a lot of fun doing what we do, so it’s nice to be able to share that,” Prill says. “And the kids have lots of stories to share.”
For pervious lessons on vegetables, dairy products and other topics, Gagnon’s invited farmers with expertise in those areas. Peg Laughran of Sunnyfield Brick Oven Bakery in Tamworth spoke to students about grains, while Nate Winship and Hope Requardt of Tanna Farm spoke about vegetables and Bob Streeter and Amy Carter from Red Gables Farm told students about dairy cows.
Local connections
Hannah Fleischmann, who coordinates the school’s garden, connects Gagnon with farmers in the area.
“One farmer came in and talked about what she grows, brought in some soil, and even brought in some carrots for the students to taste,” Gagnon says. “It gives students a deeper connection to their food and makes healthy eating more accessible and understandable for them.”
Fleischmann, whose position is funded by a grant from the Harvard-Pilgrim Healthy Food Fund, agrees. Meeting farmers one-on-one in the classroom expands the ways students think about food and farms.
“One example that I think is very cool is that a farmer who grows vegetables came in and said her name and used female pronouns, and a couple of kids said, ‘Oh, I thought the farmer was going to be a man!’” she says. “All the students have an idea of what farmers look like, and there are lots of different faces in the farming world, so I think it’s taught them a lot. And they’ve been able to taste a lot of new foods they didn’t know they liked previously.”
Sharing stories
Back in the classroom, Gagnon and Prill help students as they complete an exercise in which they have to identify foods with protein in them. Later, Gagnon leads students through a short food safety lesson, and the students offer up anecdotes about leaving milk out on the counter too long (“We left chocolate milk out of the fridge too long and it became chocolate cheese!”) and when someone should wash their hands (“If you’re playing with your socks!”).
The weekly lessons with farmers teach kids about healthy food, but they also help spread the word about local farms and farmers markets. After each session, Gagnon sends students home with a handout about that week’s farmer and information on the Tamworth Farmers Market, which provides customers using SNAP/EBT benefits with extra purchasing power thanks to the Granite State Market Match program and private donations.
Of course, there’s plenty of fun to be had, too. Later that morning in teacher Terri Dostanko’s first grade classroom, students draw their favorite kind of protein on a paper plate. As first grader Jackie Willis draws and colors a steak, she recounts what she’s learned that morning — and can’t resist sharing a story.
“I learned you have to eat proteins every single day, and I have a lot of chickens and one more turkey,” she says, smiling. “And I really want to know more about proteins.”
