Kids Learn Why Bees Are Awesome
Aug. 15, 2015 - Bees are vital to the world's food supply. To educate schoolchildren about the importance of honeybees, the Sweet Virginia Foundation is using a combination of classroom instruction and hands-on experience. The kids get up close and personal with the insects, donning beekeeper suits and actually interacting with a buzzing hive. The White House is also working to inform the public about the importance of these pollinators—last year, First Lady Michelle Obama added a pollinator garden and honeybee hive on the South Lawn.
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Transcript
Dan Price
Founder
Sweet Virginia Foundation
Honeybees are our most efficient and effective pollinators, so they pollinate lots of fruits and vegetables. We've invited a classroom full of DC kids to come down here and put on the bee veil and the bee suit for protection. We'll open up beehives and get them into the hive like a beekeeper.
Eliseo Siguenza
Student
Liliana Manzano
Student
I was like nervous, I thought that it was gonna sting and bite me.
The next time we go could not be afraid.
John Holdren
President's Chief Science Advisor
A lot of kids are afraid of bees, and one of the things we want these kids to understand is that bees are immensely valuable part of the ecosystem and they help produce the food we eat.
Eliseo Siguenza
Student
Liliana Manzano
Student
Like bzzzzz, and when they're moving they're not straight, like moving around very curvy and bumpy.
Louise Edsall
Director of Education
Sweet Virginia Foundation
We bring an observation hive to the classroom program, you get the oohs and awws from all the kids. They can see the activity of the honeybees crawling around on the comb, they can find the queen which we've usually marked.
John Holdren
A couple years after the First Lady Mrs. Obama established a vegetable garden on the south lawn of the White House, she decided to establish a pollinator garden as well, and to set up a honeybee hive.
Michelle Obama
First Lady of the United States
Butterflies, bats, bees, birds. All of those things get attracted to the garden.
Dan Price
I think honeybees make a great vehicle to open young eyes that what's happening in nature is not just random chaos, that there's beauty and order to it. And I think this little creature creates a great opportunity to have children see that.
