NEW YORK CITY – It’s not every day that students sitting in inner city classrooms get to reach out and “touch” a farm animal, but thanks to a new humane education program being piloted by Farm Sanctuary, America’s leading farm animal protection organization, city kids are not only getting a rare opportunity to come face-to-face with cows, pigs, sheep, goats, chickens and other farm animals, but they’re also learning to think critically about the complex issues of contemporary agriculture — many for the first time in their lives. The unique and timely program, entitled “Meet the Animals: A Virtual Tour of Farm Sanctuary,” uses Virtual Reality (VR) headsets to introduce middle and high school students in the New York and Philadelphia metro areas to farm animals— the largest group of abused animals on Earth— and foster solution-oriented, critical analysis of our food system.
“Most city kids have never had the opportunity to meet a farm animal, and it’s hard to have empathy for someone you’ve never met,” said Farm Sanctuary Humane Educator Ben Araya, who draws on his five years of experience as the lead tour guide at the nonprofit organization’s upstate New York sanctuary to bring the sanctuary experience into classrooms. “When you combine kids’ natural sense of compassion for animals with knowledge of the intelligent, social, and emotional nature of farm animals, and how they are treated in our food system, it’s a powerful force for positive change.”
Araya takes students on a virtual tour of Farm Sanctuary’s upstate New York sanctuary right from their classroom seats through VR technology, photos, video, and storytelling, and introduces them to the animals who call the sanctuary home. As part of telling the animals’ histories, he shares background on the conditions these animals came from and the realities of our modern food system in an age-appropriate way that even includes a group exercise that gets students out of their seats and actively imagining what life is like for the animals. He also offers information about how plant-based food choices and reducing consumption of animal products is a great step to take towards helping animals.
In addition to the core “Meet the Animals” presentation, the program will offer three additional presentations: “The Inner Lives of Farm Animals: Cognition, Emotion, and Sociality;” “Food and the Environment: Climate Change, Deforestation, and Local Communities;” and “What’s on Your Plate? Animals and Food in America.” To extend the program’s reach to even more classrooms and students, Farm Sanctuary is developing curriculum resources that will be available free of charge to teachers worldwide.
“I think it opened the eyes of my city kids,” said Amanda Xavier, a 6th grade teacher at Ditmas Junior High School of a recent presentation in her classroom. “Many only have a vague idea of a ‘nice’ farm from childhood books. I think it increased awareness about factory farms and how bad conditions really are, and increased awareness about the animals as well. Most kids have no idea where their food comes from. This may have been the first time most of them learned about how their food is treated before it gets to their plates.”
