SAN FRANCISCO– This spring, middle and high school students in the San Francisco Bay Area will find 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 immersive “virtual field trip” is part of an exciting new in-classroom humane education program called “Meet the Animals: A Virtual Tour of Farm Sanctuary” from Farm Sanctuary, a national nonprofit that works to change the way society views and treats farm animals. The West Coast launch, which marks the organization’s first San Francisco-based program, uses virtual reality to teach students compassion for farm animals, and launched to overwhelming teacher demand last spring in the New York City and Philadelphia metro areas.
“Most city kids rarely if ever have the opportunity to interact with farm animals, so there’s a real lack of understanding about who these animals are and how they get to our plate,” said Farm Sanctuary’s new San Francisco Humane Educator Maddie Krasno, who draws on her experience as a tour guide at the nonprofit’s New York Shelter to bring the sanctuary experience into classrooms. “When kids see how playful and full of emotion these animals are, they want to help protect them from the miserable conditions they endure in 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.
“It is critically important to address the negative impacts of industrial animal agriculture if we hope to curb some of the biggest threats our world faces,” said Farm Sanctuary President and Co-founder Gene Baur, who TIME magazine calls “the conscience of the food movement.” “Failing to discuss these issues in the classroom would be doing future generations a terrible disservice.”
