Oregon Beef Council Report virtual field trips feature oregon ranches & dairies From Oregon Beef Council Chief Executive Officer Will Wise will@orbeef.org
Greetings from the Oregon Beef Council office, everyone! For the past few years, I have had the pleasure to be a part of the board of directors for the Oregon Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation. They do amazing work with volunteers reading books about agriculture in classrooms and other great projects. Recently, they started doing virtual field trips to Oregon farms and ranches. This technological jump means that thousands of students are part of a field trip. For example, on recent beef ranch tours in Prineville and Mitchell, there were 45 classrooms connected with a video link that brought this to 1,154 students. That is clearly a plus for Oregon animal agriculture. Oregon ranchers have told me they support what the Oregon Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation is doing and the Oregon Beef Council demonstrates this by voting each year to fund some of this work through our “Positive Producer Image” line item in the check off budget. John Flynn, Oregon Beef Council vice-chairman from Lakeview, told me that he thought highly of this work and would recommend we do more.
Using videoconference technology, Jessica Jansen is the Executive Director of the which is now familOregon Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation iar to many, Oregon Agriculture in the Classroom has hosted a series of “Virtual Farm Field Trips” featuring dairy and beef cattle. This innovative method allows students a window into animal agriculture, no permission slips needed. The classes interact with the farmer in real-time asking questions and seeing a glimpse into life on the farm or ranch.
April/May 2020
For this article, I asked the Executive Director of the Oregon Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation Jessica Jansen, to write a few paragraphs for the Oregon Beef
Council to put in the Oregon Cattleman magazine. I thought this would be valuable information for you to know about given our recent shift to virtual education for students in the state. Jessica does a great job with her work in my opinion and here is what she wrote:
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www.orcattle.com | Oregon Cattleman
