DairyCo

Getting children involved

Published 5 November 10

Want your child to know more about farming?

The National Federation of Young Farmers' Clubs (NFYFC) is one of the largest rural youth organisations in the UK.

It heads a nationwide body of 662 Young Farmers' Clubs (YFCs) in England and Wales dedicated to supporting young people
in agriculture and the countryside.

Each Young Farmers' Club is affiliated to the National Federation of Young Farmers' Clubs (NFYFC) and is supported by a Federation of Young Farmers' Clubs (County Federation).

YFC aims to provide an opportunity for young people to develop, to learn and to enjoy themselves. YFC can offer a wide range of skills and services and is open to any young person, of any creed, ethnic background, mental or physical capability, of any gender between the ages of 10 and 26. 

The clubs offer a diverse, fun and educational programme of activities planned by members, for members.
For further information please visit www.nfyfc.org.uk

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Let nature feed your senses

Encouraging a lifelong love of nature though food, farming and our everyday lives

Let nature feed your senses is a Big Lottery funded project run in partnership between LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming) and Sensory Trust who, through the programme, are engaging people with nature, food and farming on a network of farms and nature reserves across England. 

The project is working with people that currently cannot or do not access the countryside because of age, ability or social situation. Let nature feed your senses specific beneficiary groups are as follows;

• People who have a disability
• People who live in an area of high social deprivation (10% most deprived Super Output Area, regionally),
• People aged 65 or over
• School children who either have a disability, who live in an area of high social deprivation or attend a school that has been unable to previously access farm visits

Sensory-rich visits

A Let nature feed your senses experience engages all five senses in as many ways as possible.

A visit focuses on animating the links between nature, food, farming and our everyday lives. It is active - the visitors have many opportunities to explore, discover, question, play, touch, taste, smell, feel, hear, see and make things. The visit is well planned with the visiting group so it is adapted to the needs of the older, young or disabled visitors.

Is there any richer sensory environment than a farm?

Multisensory learning works well because of the way our brains store memories. Each of our senses has its own memory location in our brains and when we remember something our brain reassembles the different bits of memory into a whole. Research has shown that the more memory fragments that are reassembled, the stronger and more emotive the memory. So, environmental activities that stimulate more senses lead to a stronger emotional connection with the environment.