Somis : Schoolchildren Get the Scoop on Dirt

About 400 children converged in a Somis schoolyard Friday to learn about soils, the use of beneficial insects instead of pesticides, farm animals and the value of trees.

The Ag-Science Field Day at Mesa Union School was sponsored by the University of California Cooperative Extension in Ventura to teach schoolchildren about the county’s largest industry.

“It was a wonderful beginning to Ventura County agriculture becoming a partner with education,” said Laurie Vanoni, who coordinated the field day for the extension office.

The program included lectures and displays geared to young people.

“The faces of the first-graders just lit up when they were told that each one of us uses one 50-year-old tree each year,” Vanoni said.

“We need to plant more trees,” one first-grader said.

Each child received a free seedling from Trees Are For People, a nonprofit organization.

University agriculture adviser Ben Faber asked a group of students: “What color is soil?”

Many answered simply, “Black.”

But Faber had displayed five soil samples that ranged from purple to brown to white, all taken from the Ojai area.

“Open your eyes and look around you,” he told them.

Vanoni said plans are already under way for an agriculture training day for teachers next fall, and she hopes the field day will become an annual event.

“It was a good start to helping the children become educated consumers,” Vanoni said.