- Video shows the fairgrounds, petting zoo, and students from across the county enjoying the fair.
- Local elementary school students spent the day at the fair, taking a hands-on approach to learning, and one local FFA student spent her days teaching kids about raising her calf.
It was all smiles after leaving petting zoo on school day at the Kern County Fair.
“The fair’s been fun. y’all should come, and just have fun. treat yourself, and that’s it.,” Fabian Ramos Sanchez, a student at Wayside Elementary School giggles.
Both Ramos Sanchez and Jesus Gomez, sixth graders from Bakersfield attended the fair before, but they say one thing set this year’s fair apart from their past visits.
“There’s a petting zoo. We can walk around. You can touch the animals,” Gomez smiles.
The Kern County Fair hosted schools from across the county on Tuesday morning for school day, an opportunity for kids to get out of the classroom.
“This week in our classroom, we are speaking about barn life,” Briana Parson, a teacher with Fairground Child Development Center with the Kern County Superintendent of Schools says.
She thinks taking the kids out out the traditional learning space for the day helped enhance their hands-on learning experience.
“It was really nice because yesterday I was able to speak with the kids about, 'well what animals do you think you see on the farm,' and then they came out here," she explains. "Oh there’s the pig, so it's really just really nice to be able to incorporate that inside the classroom and outside of the classroom.”
Gia Wattenbarger, a freshman Future Farmers of America student at Garces High School spent time showing the kids her calf, Daz.
She tells me she started showing dairy after seeing her cousin work with cattle three years ago.
“I showed pygmy goats and poultry, so starting with dairy was all honestly because of my cousin Claire, and she showed me all of the things dairy had,” Wattenbarger gushed.
And in the same way her cousin began her journey, she hopes to start another young kid’s journey.
“I think it’s great because they can develop a spark like I did.”
According to the 2022 Kern County Crop report, livestock and poultry generated more than $340,000 for the county with livestock and poultry products bringing in more than $1,000,000, and in an agriculture dominated county, Parson believes events like this provide those opportunities to excite kids about a future career in that field.
“It’s a lot of different touches, smells, senses, a lot of different things, and hopefully maybe some of these young children will be the farmers of our future,” Parson hopes.
The Kern County Fair continues this week, and if you’re looking for a chance to get to the fair for free, you can bring six canned food items for free admission on Wednesday for the Feed the Need event.
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