Members of Clearview Elementary’s Cougar Club were able to learn with all five of their senses during a field trip to McDonald’s Meats in Clear Lake last week.

 

Their teachers were talking to them about safe food care and safe food preparation, and felt a field trip to see an actual demonstration would be a great way for them to learn.

 

They contacted Jennifer Dierkes of McDonald’s Meats, who agreed to give the students a tour of their new facility.

 

At the shop, Dierkes and Travis McDonald broke the first through sixth graders into two groups, with each of them leading one of the groups on a tour. Each student was given a paper hat to wear that said, ‘honorary team member.’ 

 

“When we got there, it smelled so good I couldn’t wait to go inside,” said Chase H. “They gave us hats and a tour, and showed us where they only worked in a small room before and then they added on a bunch.”

 

The freezer was one of the areas that made a big impression on the students.

 

“We got to walk in a freezer that was -20 degrees!” said Lillian B. “We walked all the way to the back. There was meat in boxes all over.”

 

“It was fun,” said Paige W. “They showed us what the workers do. We got to see one cutting up a beef carcass and we got to see them make sausage.”

 

“They wear hard hats because they have big machines,” added Chase. “And for some reason they have a TV but they never use it because they have fun talking to each other instead.”

 

Along with the freezer and sausage being made, the kids saw bacon being sliced, beef sticks being packaged in the packaging area, and in the smoke room, dried beef and hams that had just come out.

 

“They had lots of questions,” said Dierkes. “The older kids wanted to know how the smoke house worked and some told us about how they were raising their own beef and chickens. The younger ones were fascinated with the door foamers for sanitizing shoes.”

 

“My favorite part was either trying out the samples or going in the freezer,” said Bennan H.

 

The students were able to sample McDonald’s Meats famous beef jerky and beef sticks, and at the end of the tour they were greeted by the company’s cow mascot.

 

Before heading back to Clearview, they were given gift bags that contained a food safety coloring book, a temporary tattoo of the McDonald’s Meats mascot, and packages of gummy hamburgers and gummy hotdogs.