Thinking as an engineer - Kayandra blog (aged 10)
What does engineering have to do with a 10 year old!?
The new Engineering Educates Farmvention Challenge 2023 is all about getting young people thinking like engineers and inspiring them into engineering. But you don’t have to take our word for it - read about the experience that Kayandra had with her class taking part in the Challenge!
Together with her classmates, Kayandra has been taking the Cattle Carers pathway - which focuses on engineering in the context of dairy farming. By exploring and creating solutions, pupils are challenged to improve cattle living conditions and the health and wellbeing of cows on contemporary farms. A visit to Croston Home Farm, a farm education centre in Chorley, put it all into context!
Kayandra writes…
On Tuesday we went to Croston Home Farm. We got to school at around 07:45 and we left school at about 08:00, 6 of us went in a minivan and 2 in Mr Leech’s car. 3 teachers came with us.
When we arrived at the farm, we sat down inside a marquee. The benches were made out of straw, oak and little rugs; farmer Elaine and farmer Paul don’t like to waste things, so instead of cutting down the oak, they used oak that had fallen down in the wind. In the marquee, Josh (someone who works for the NFU) introduced us to the crew. After everyone was introduced, we were split into 2 groups and given clip boards.
After we had finished in the marquee, my group went to the milking parlour and saw how it worked. In most farms, the cows get milked at certain times of the day but at farmer Elaine’s farm they can get milked whenever they feel like it. The machine has a pulse on it and that pulse acts like a calf sucking it’s udder so it doesn’t hurt; cows like to be milked and that’s why they’re allowed to go in and out whenever they want and if they didn’t like it they wouldn’t go in. If one of the cows were sick but they wanted to get milked then they could, but the milk that came from them would be discarded. When the milk comes out from a cow it is warm so the machine makes it cold, as fast as possible so that no bacteria gets into the milk we drink.
Just before lunchtime it was my group’s turn to see the baby calves, there were about 7 that had been born within a week or so. The calves ate haylage, while the cows ate silage (both drank water). I learned that calf poo is sloppier than cow poo and that cows/calves tongue’s are like sand paper. Cows/calves like licking certain types of material. Calves are very playful and like to run around but sometimes they snuggle up with each other and groom each other. In their yard they have hey spread on the floor to make it comfortable for them when they want to rest/sleep.
Right after seeing the cute, little calves we all had lunch together in the marquee and sat and talked for about 15-20 minutes about what we had done in the morning; when we had all had lunch the camera men were gone and we did some fun activities: first we used our clip boards and paper to make tally’s on what cows/calves liked doing best and what things they needed encouragement in doing, I found out that cows like sleeping and resting best, their second favourite thing to do was eating, the things they needed encouraging to do was grooming, playing/interacting and moving around. We also made butter by shaking a jar and had the chance to experience what milking a cow is like, using 2 buckets, one of which had an udder attached to it. Finally after all our fun activities we went for a nice walk in the woods and crossed a bridge made from a tree trunk.
I learned a lot of facts from this experience and will share all of them now:
cows can go up stairs but not down
cows wear chains on their legs when they have just given birth or they could slip and dislocate their hips
it doesn’t hurt cow’s when they get milked
you can tell how pregnant a cow is by how far back their udders are
cows like calm music
to know if a cow is pregnant a vet has to stick their hand up it’s bum!
cows like scratches behind their ears and bum!
cow tongues are like sand paper
farmers can check on a cow wherever they are in the world as long as they have Internet connection
there is a machine called the crusher that helps you keep the cow still when you are trying to figure out where the cow is hurting
the NFU (national farmers union) cares for most farmers in England
cow food smells nice
you only have to have 1 bull on a dairy farm
It’s great to hear all about how Kayandra’s school were able to bring the Challenge resources to life by visiting a working farm.
Do you have a story to share about your Challenge experience? We’d love to hear from you!
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