The students of class 6. a and 6. b of Máté Forray Primary School and Basic Artistic Educational Institute at Szegvár participated in TELLUS programme, during which the children had a chance to visit three farms and get a lot of useful information about the sectors of agriculture.
In our school, we have taken into regard the activity shown during last year's Grow Your Own! programme when we have selected the two classes and the active participation of the two head teachers. The material of TELLUS programme was introduced embedded into the natural sciences class by the two teachers of the year, Éva Pólyáné Téli and Ildikó Víghné Németh. we did the insertion of the new learning material into the curriculum together, including what can fit to the fifth and seventh class themes.We have visited three farmers. First, we were at the garden of Dániel Bakó at Szentes, where paprika is cultivated in greenhouses heated by thermal water. Here, children had a chance to learn how pumping is done, what kind of precise nutrition-dosing equipment is needed, they could have tried the paprika sorting machine, take a look at the heating house, and finally they could have taken a look at the paprika. They received a lot of useful information during the day.
Secondly, we visited Zsolt Hegedűs, a farmer at Kecskemét. At this farm, we had a chance to take a look at the mysteries of animal breeding. Children could experience taht it is possible to farm in a natural way. Zsolt told them that they started farming with a few animals, and as their circumstances and financial conditions allowed them, they continually expanded the livestock. So he pointed out to them that farming is not only possible with investments on the scale of tens of millions of forints, since that amount of capital is only available for a few.
Our third visit was at the farm of András Vén who is also at Kecskemét, where we had arrived with a horse-drawn lorry. Here, the children could have seen the machinery and different kinds of grains.All three farmers introduced the specialties of their farms, and emphasised that it is very important to plan for a few years ahead. The children especially enjoyed the visit at Zsolt Hegedűs , because they could have seen a lot of animals there. Besides cattle, they saw chickens, lambs, horses, rabbits, furthermore, even approximately twenty deers during the lorry trip.The programme was also enjoyable for us, attending teachers. We have also experienced a lot of interesting things and it was very good to se the kids' enthusiasm. Since there are a lot of people at Szegvár who are farming, this area is not far from our pupils. Besides them “growing their own” vegetables happily, some of them seriously contemplate that this kind of work may be an alternative to make a living in the future.They could have experienced how big a role is determination, painstaking labour, educatedness, and luck is playing at getting by. Of course not only in this area, but luck may have the biggest role here.TELLUS Programme presents parts belonging to the actual learning material from a bit of another perspective, and this unambiguously has a positive effect on the pupils, it raises their attention.
Ildikó Víghné Németh
Teacher
Máté Forray Primary School
