LOS ANGELES – This spring, middle and high school students in the Los Angeles area are finding themselves standing in the middle of rolling green pastures, interacting with rescued cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, and other farm animals without ever leaving their classroom. This “virtual field trip” is part of a new in-classroom humane education program from Farm Sanctuary, America’s premier farm animal sanctuary and advocacy organization, called “Meet the Animals: A Virtual Tour of Farm Sanctuary.” The program, which already launched to overwhelming teacher demand in New York City, Philadelphia, and San Francisco, uses virtual reality to teach students compassion for farm animals.
“Most kids living in the city rarely, if ever, have the opportunity to interact with and actually get to know farm animals, so many of them don’t really understand who these animals are and how they get to our plate,” said Farm Sanctuary’s Los Angeles Humane Educator Kamekə Brown. “When students learn about who these animals are, they’re inspired to want to create positive change to end the harm they endure as part of our modern food system.”
The “virtual field trip” is interwoven with age-appropriate photos, video, storytelling, and eye-opening interactive learning exercises, including one that gets students out of their seats and actively imagining what life is like for chickens inside a battery cage, which typically hold up to 11 birds with floor space equivalent to less than a sheet of letter-size paper.
Actress Emily Deschanel, a long-time farm animal activist and member of Farm Sanctuary’s Board of Directors, is a fan of the program. “Teaching kids compassion is one of the best things we can do to create a kinder, more just world,” said Deschanel. “Children have a natural empathy for animals. By cultivating this natural compassion in students, Farm Sanctuary’s Humane Education program is creating better citizens, neighbors, and leaders.”
Benefits of Humane Education:*
- Studies have shown that humane education has benefits for academic performance as well as student health and development.
- Humane education can enable at-risk students to find workable solutions to health and social problems.
- Teachers who infuse concepts of humane education into their classroom practices and culture have reported fewer conduct problems and aggressive behavior.
- Student and teacher high interest in animal-based curriculum promotes deep engagement and learning.
- Authentic learning built around animal welfare education and animal welfare topics that impact the real world encourages brain growth and increased competencies in areas such as kinesthetic, spatial, artistic, and interpersonal in a way that traditional didactic and educator centered learning does not.
To learn more about Farm Sanctuary’s Humane Education Program, visit farmsanctuary.org/humane-education.
*Sources:
The impact of enhancing students’ social and emotional learning: a meta-analysis of school-based universal interventions, Child Development, 2011 Jan-Feb;82(1), pp. 405-32, Durlak JA1, Weissberg RP, Dymnicki AB, Taylor RD, Schellinger KB.
The Effects of Transformational Humane Education on at Risk Youth in an Alternative School Setting, Journal of Education and Human Development March 2015, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 189-195 Professor Debbie Mims & Rhondda Waddell
Gardner, H. (2011). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York, NY: Basic Books.
