Science Hides On a Farm
H being goofy - but he wired that solar powered mobile rabbit warren behind him.
Science Hides On a Farm. This is so very true, especially on an urban farm like Mezzacello Urban Farm. You all know I love integrating STEM, farming, animals, renewables and data. If you didn’t - you do now. I know that kids want to know how to grow food and play with chicks and the baby rabbits that also live here. I also know the farm animals are very popular and unexpected in a farm in the middle of downtown Columbus, OH.
A Google Map of the river downtown, the State Capital, the Main Library, the Columbus Museum of Art, I-71, and Mezzacello Urban Farm
But the fact remains, that in order to be a farmer, you must understand the relationships between countless systems, cycles, and processes on the farm. This is science. And that science is everywhere - at least to em, but not to the average person who might be interested in Mezzacello.
“What is the role of a farmer? Are they a technician who asks questions like, ‘what does food want?’”
The Role of a Farmer and of a Farm
Recently, someone asked me what I thought the role of a farm was. I was quite taken aback by the question. I tend to think of Mezzacello as an applied STEM Learning Lab and a farm.
This person insisted I answer that pertinent question. What is the role of a farm? I answered it is a place where people work with nature to grow food and maintain soil to support life and thus grow more food.
So what then is the role of a farmer? Is a farmer a worker who JUST grows, harvests, and sells food? Are they a technician who asks questions like, “What does food want?” Is a farmer a master of animals, insects, microorganisms, and soil that make food grow more reliably and sustainably?
Is Mezzacello a Farm?
I don’t think of Mezzacello as a “farm” in this way. I grow food, I harvest and store it, and I use it, but I can in no way grow enough food to subsist on this small plot of land. BUT THAT IS NOT THE POINT! What does the public think a farm is — that is the point.
“Farm: n - An area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production.”
In this respect, Mezzacello is a farm. I grow food as crops, and I grow food efficiently and effectively. But food is a by-product of my main passion: finding science in the little things.
Maybe I have imposter syndrome, but I am not always comfortable saying Mezzacello Urban Farm is just a food growing enterprise. I also think that teaching kids, families, and communities problem-solving skills and applied STEM design thinking is a crop. I just look at the mneans and goals from different perspectives sometimes.
Rethinking Life: From the Atom Up
This is my de-facto concept of what Mezzacello Urban Farm’s mission of Grow Maintain, Sustain, Explain makes possible. By reframing the idea of a farm to enable and empower our youth to find the myriad of ways that science hides on a farm, I create a unique opportunity. But at it’s heart, Mezzacello is a farm. I produce food, animals, manure, fertilizer, compost, water, and energy.
I also reverse engineer all of that to find ways that enable and empower kids to see their future in the basic premise that science hides on a farm — and in life in general. We all of us can always use the opportunity to grow our understanding of the related mysteries of the world and the environment we are inheriting. That is a basic produce of our humanity.
