2016-Cairn February 2016: The Urban Farm & Planning Session

Start Date-End Date: 02/20/2016-02/20/2016 Land Manager Office: The Urban Farm Land Manager Contact: Funding Partner: Environmental Learning for Kids - ELK Programmatic Partner: Summary: Students will help out with various tasks around the Urban Farm in the morning, alongside students from ELK. In the afternoon, we will head back to the VOC office to plan for our final project. Description: Students will help out with various tasks around the Urban Farm in the morning, alongside students from ELK. In the afternoon, we will head back to the VOC office to plan for our final project. Latitude/Longitude: 39.768397, -104.872038 Additional Information: Camping Available: No Physical Difficulty: Easy High Altitude Project: No Desired Number of Volunteers: 35 Total Adult Volunteers Attended: 5 Total Youth Volunteers Attended: 26 Total Volunteer Days: 31 Total Unique Volunteers: 31 Total Volunteer Hours: 235 Staff Hours: 16 Stipend Hours: 0 Project Summary: For our February project, the Cairn program went to the Urban Farm in Stapleton for the morning, and worked alongside the high school program from Environmental Learning for Kids (ELK). We did some icebreaker games that were fun, to get the two programs mingling a little more. After a brief talk on local agriculture, and getting a glimpse of their aquaponic system, we went on a tour of the farm. Then we got to work scooping out their large horse and cow pens. Over the course of a few months, animal fecal matter, hay and water compacted to create a solid layer. This layer can cause bacteria to form in horse/cow hooves, which can result in making them lame. Students worked really hard all morning to scrape and shovel up this layer, which we put into big piles that will be composted. Successes and Challenges: The work was definitely not glamorous. We got an inside look into the hard work that goes into farming, and some of the kids were definitely not into it. For the most part though, they all put in a ton of effort, and came away feeling good about what we had done. Lessons Learned: Mike, the director at the Urban Farm, is a pretty soft spoken guy. He really appreciated all the work of the kids, and told us to come back anytime. He just may need some more prompting in terms of talking about the farm's operations. Special Notes: Stewardship Education: Provided by the Urban Farm staff. Key Concerns or Comments from Staff or Volunteers: Description of Accidents/Incidents: Description of Work Completed: