I think college should have more field trips. I mean, how many chances do we get to hop in a school bus and spend an entire day exploring a farm or museum with our friends? I got to buy homemade soap and learn some cool facts about bees, all while developing my portfolio as a social media intern for Auxiliary Services. This is the dream. IU Indy professors, if you’re looking to refresh your syllabi, look no further than the Center for Young Children for inspo.
On Thursday, May 29th, the CYC’s Multi-Age classes visited Hunter’s Honey Farm in Martinsville, Indiana. As the preschool’s social media manager, I tagged along to get some photos. It’s one of my favorite parts of my internship here at Aux. The kids are fun and spontaneous. When the school bus lurched into motion, they squealed and giggled like it was a rollercoaster ride. As we drove through the budding cornfields, the farmhands working outside would look up and wave at the bus. That’s the CYC experience—they just bring joy and excitement wherever they go.
Hunter’s Honey Farm offers a variety of interesting tours, and ours was called the “Worker Special Tour.” We saw the honey house, rolled our own beeswax candles, and each child filled up a plastic bear bottle with honey. I joined Ms. Adria’s class for the tour. Our tour guide, a college-age girl with overalls, quizzed the kids about bees. “What do you call the biggest bee in the hive?” “The queen!” Then, the questions got tougher. Did you know that drones, unlike worker bees, have no stinger? The kids did! Ms. Adria told me that her class has been studying bees for two weeks to prepare for the trip.
We started off with the candle making section of the tour. According to our tour guide, beeswax candles absorb bad smells while avoiding the overpowering or artificial scent of a store bought candle. The teachers and parent chaperones helped the kids line up the wick and slowly roll up their candles. They waved the candles in the air to show each other when they were done. Then, they stood in line to fill their honey bears at the clover honey spigot. Since it was a little tall, each kid had to stand on tiptoe and stretch out one arm to put their bears under the tap, and I stood nearby to get some video footage. Their faces lit up as the first bit of honey settled in the bottom. I was surprised nobody tried to sneak a sample. It looked delicious.
Then, the group moved into the honey house. We started in a warehouse area with these huge barrels stacked from floor to ceiling. Our tour guide said these were filled with over 650 pounds of honey. “That weighs a lot more than you guys, huh?” she said to the kids. They laughed. She walked us through the process of extracting and straining the honey to produce the stuff we put in our mint tea during allergy season. After that, we met some bees, buzzing around an enclosed hive room with a huge viewing window. The kids didn’t seem as wary of them as the adults, just pressed their faces and hands to the glass to get a closer look. I got some really hilarious photos of this. One little girl asked the tour guide to open the door so she could go in the room with the bees. I guess fear of insects is a learned behavior? Or, she’s just a lot braver than me.
We also learned a lot about the benefit of bees to their environment. The Bee Conservancy reports that bees pollinate a third of our food supply, with honeybees in particular contributing 15 billion dollars per year to the U. S. agricultural industry. They promote biodiversity through a variety of fruit, flowers, vegetables, seeds, and nuts. I’ve always viewed them as one of the many perils of outdoor recreation, but visiting the honey farm with the CYC showed me a new perspective on their importance. I think it’s a good lesson to learn alongside preschoolers—that everybody can make the world a better place, no matter how small.
As a four year old, I remember my only interests were Elmo and toaster waffles, but the CYC students amazed me with their curiosity and excitement to learn more. Visiting the honey farm applied and expanded the things they were already learning at school, and it was a great opportunity for them to practice asking questions. The CYC always inspires me in the way I approach learning. As a college student, it can be easy to get lost in the motions of my degree requirements. However, the reason I chose to attend the IU Indy School of Liberal Arts is the same reason many parents enroll their kids in the CYC: to create, explore, and grow. Attending CYC field trips through my internship with Auxiliary Services reminds me why I chose IU and brings me closer to accomplishing this goal.
As our bus bumbled along the country roads on the way back to school, I saw the same farmer wave at us again. This time, I waved back, and several of the kids did, too, or maybe they were just swinging the plastic bags the farm gave them to carry their honey and candles. I opened my phone to sift through the photos and videos I had taken. They made me smile. Looking through pictures of the kids rolling candles, filling their honey bears, and exploring the honey house, it didn’t feel like just another marketing gig—it felt like capturing memories that, just like childhood, are precious and worth holding onto.
To keep up with all the amazing things going on at the CYC, visit their Instagram or Facebook page!
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