“All the parties did their best to give the students a good experience”

Implementation of farm visits in cooperation between universities

Abstract

The transformations affecting humanity have brought complex issues and problems to learners that require more than scientific knowledge to be solved. The curriculum of basic education encourages the implementation of entities related to genuine multidisciplinary challenges in schools, and especially the sustainability perspective on food production issues provides an opportunity for the development and implementation of multidisciplinary STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, all, Mathematics) learning modules.

In this article, we will look at an attempt to reconcile the operating environment of basic education, multidisciplinary STEAM learning, and issues related to the future of Finnish food production industries. The authors of the article have contributed to the project in Safka trail – Bringing the food chain familiar to young people (2024 - 2026) and present a pilot entity related to it.

The farm environment and food production are perfect for illustrating many different educational contents. This was observed during farm visits in the autumn of 2025: Teacher students planned the visits in cooperation with the farms and primary school teachers, implemented them with student groups, and assessed the success of the implementations. The commissioning and planning, as well as covering expenses such as bus transportation, was supported by the Bioeconomy Institute of Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences, which is a co-executor on the Safka trail project, funded by the Finnish Food Authority.