Cyber-trips to specialized farms

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Food to feed the world's burgeoning populations requires the hard work of farmers who work the land and raise animals that eventually produce a wide range of consumables for supermarket shelves.

Children who know little about the agricultural community can benefit from a site developed by an extension of one of the premier educational clubs that, for more than 100 years, has inspired youths to "learn by doing" as they gain valuable life skills.

4-H Virtual Farm

Site address: www.ext.vt.edu/resources/4h/virtualfarm/main.html

Creator: A team of subject-matter specialists, multimedia designers and youth development specialists at the Virginia Cooperative Extension, based at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg developed and maintain the site.

Creator quotable: "We created the 4-H Virtual Farm site to provide youth with an opportunity to learn basic information about agriculture," says Joe Hunnings, extension specialist for 4-H youth development. "The U.S. continues to become a more urbanized society, and youth growing up today have little knowledge about agriculture or how agricultural products are produced. The 4-H Virtual Farm provides youth with a virtual farming experience that makes them more aware of what the farming industry is like."

Word from the Webwise: Children in third to fifth grade can take a colorful and media-rich trip to several online farms through a Web site that may not dazzle with high tech-magic, but easily will enlighten.

By clicking on front-page icons, visitors can explore the sections Wheat, Poultry, Dairy, Beef, Aquaculture and Horse Farm that use a variety of designs and interactives to reveal the nuances of farming.

Each photo-rich section follows a pattern that includes introduction to an expert in the field, a stop by a Virginia-specific farm, a discussion on the production process of the food, a scientific look at the product, a specific glossary of terms and a quiz to reinforce the concepts taught.

In the Wheat section, for example, the visitor meets, through a narrated presentation, farmer Courtney Price as he answers six questions about his business. Visitors find out when wheat is grown at Virginia's Brandon Plantation, use a 360-degree viewer to watch the harvesting of soybeans, work through a 20-page slide show on how wheat gets to the marketplace, and learn the difference between a combine and a plow.