Our sessions with Rapper Farmer Brown

We had two sessions with Rapper Farmer Brown (aka Trevor Claiborn).  You can read more about him here here and here . On Friday, July 7th, Trevor met with us and talked about his career as a rap artist and his transition to outreach to children.  He uses rap to educate them about agriculture, nutrition and gardening. He also channels his creativity in writing children's books.  He talked about the process he went through to discovering his passion for what he does.  He also discussed  how outreach can be incorporated into any research agenda (including undergraduate research experiences) and why it is important to using culturally appropriate materials to reach your target audience.  

Overall, his activities can be summarized as hip-hop themed educational audio & video production, live lecture and performance, urban gardening activities and educational curricula and activities.

On July 14th, we had the opportunity to watch him in action as he interacted with children in the Children's garden of the Arboretum.   We also had the opportunity to do short videos describing our research projects.

The "Chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing shuffle...." refrain got stuck in my head all afternoon and reminded me of a song I grew up with--"The Chicken Dance"--one version is here.  But a more recent one by none other than Queen B is found here.  Now, all we have to do is to tie all this "Chicken Stuff"  into Environmental Health Sciences and Pharmacology.   As scientists and health care professionals, it is crucial that we learn to communicate effectively with the public and be more engaged with our local communities.    These types of outreach approaches can be very valuable for initiating our conversations and breaking down communication barriers.  If you want to learn more about how to communicate with the public, Alan Alda has just published a book on the subject that I am currently reading.