Michigan Apple Committee hosts virtual orchard tour 

The Michigan Apple Committee (MAC) virtually welcomed a registered audience of more than 20,000 elementary-aged students to virtually visit Wittenbach’s Orchard in Belding, Michigan, northeast of Grand Rapids. 

The live-streamed “field trip” followed Elizabeth Pauls, a fifth-generation apple farmer with Wittenbach’s, as she showed students how an apple grows, from grafting to planting and blossom to fruit. 

Pauls also took the time to discuss the different varieties of apples, how pollinators help farmers during blossom time, and how apples are picked and packaged to be ready to eat. Students were given the opportunity to ask questions and receive instant feedback.

The visit was made possible through MAC’s partnership with Virtual Farm Trips. The program, provided and produced by Shift•ology Communication, brings free, engaging, live and on-demand virtual farm trips from across the county directly to classrooms through Zoom and YouTube.

“Virtual Farm Trips has developed a unique method for bringing together a lot of students and giving them virtual access to an orchard. We are looking forward to hearing from the participants about their experience with this engaging topic,” Diane Smith, MAC’s executive director, said in a news release.

A recording of the live-streamed field trip is now available on MAC’s YouTube channel. MAC plans to produce two more Virtual Farm Trips over the course of the next two years.

“We have been seeking new and innovative ways to reach children and educate them about the Michigan Apple industry, along with their health benefits,” Smith said in the release. “We recently heard about this program and decided to give it a try with today’s tour. We are certainly thrilled with the response in terms of classrooms registered.” 

Based in Lansing, Michigan, the Michigan Apple Committee is a grower-funded nonprofit organization devoted to marketing, education and research activities to distinguish the Michigan apple and encourage its consumption in Michigan and around the world.