AP® Human Geography Students Visit Diary Farm
March 11, 2025
Students in AP Human Geography have spent the last month of school learning about Agriculture and Rural Land Use. Some essential questions of this unit are as follows: How do a people’s culture and the resources available to them influence how they grow food? How does what people produce and consume vary in different locations? What kind of cultural changes and technological advances have impacted the way people grow and consume food?
Our school’s location in Salzburg, Austria offers us the unique opportunity to visit farms right in our backyard. SalzburgMilch is a local milk producer that owns many farms of various sizes around Salzburg state. The Schlagerbauer BioHof is a farm right off the Moosstrasse that runs an operation of 24 cows and countless chickens, using only organic techniques. The farm owner, Stefanie, graciously hosted our class of 11 students to tour and learn about her farm with guidance from Katharina, one of SalzburgMilch’s bovine veterinarians.
| Students started the tour by getting dressed in the appropriate gear – overalls and shoe covers – in order to both keep their clothes protected and also to not contaminate any of the animals with outside bacteria. After suiting up, students saw the farm operation and learned about the life cycle of a dairy cow, its eating habits, and the resources needed to sustain the farm. We saw the newest calves of the farm, the older calves, and the adult cows feeding in the main parlor. Katharina provided a great overview of the information while attentively answering students’ questions about procedures and farm operations. At the end of the tour, students got to make their own butter from SalzburgMilch’s heavy cream product, shaking the liquid until it became solid butter! Students spread their newly made butter onto bread made by Stefanie herself! It was a delicious end to a very informative and engaging tour. Some students even got to purchase some of the farm’s fresh milk from its Milch Automat. Huge thank you to Stefanie and Katharina for their generosity! |