A bit of agriculture at HES

The students of Hanna Elementary School were visited by the Hanna, Elk Mountain, Medicine Bow (HEM) chapter of FFA on October 15. Not only were HES students present, but elementary students from Elk Mountain and Medicine Bow were also in attendance..

"Instead of trying to coordinate multiple field trips, we talked about bringing all the elementary students together here and do just one event," HEM principal Steve Priest said. "We talked to our Ag teacher about making it one big STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) day with the Ag program and the FFA."

The FFA students set up seven stations throughout HES.

"They are doing soils, planting and wildlife," Priest said. "The kids can learn about the different aspects of Ag and the presentation is geared to the age of kids."

One of the stations had llamas which were a big hit.

Priest and his family were running the llama station because HEM students Cody and Mackenzie, both FFA members are currently raising these South American camelids along with their parents.

"It is good for the FFA kids to come here and teach the younger ones and it fun for all," Priest said.

Alyssa Lewark the FFA advisor to HEM was pleased with how the event all came together.

"We have all our officers down here along with quite a few of our high school members to run the different stations," Lewark said. "Each station takes in the ages we are teaching at the time, although the topic is the same."

The llama station might arguably have been the most popular with the young students because part of the activity after learning about these animals inside, was to go outside and feed them.

Another popular station for the younger students was to dress up in the FFA uniforms. The students also learned the FFA emblem by either coloring it or reconstructing it in a puzzle.

"There was dirt cups made with pudding, oreo cookies and gummy worms," Lewark said. "They learned that you have to have topsoil and the gummy worms break it down and they get to enjoy eating at the end of the lesson."

Lewark said the activities were geared for the kids to learn but have fun doing so.

"With planting, they not only put a seed in a cup to watch it grow int he future, but they get to decorate the cup, making it something they take pride in," Lewark said. "We had corn, beans and sunflower seeds from them to choose from."

There was a tractor station and a wildlife station.

"The wildlife station they learn about antlers and populations," Lewark said. "They learn about hunting tags and field games. The games are a version of duck, duck goose, but substituting prey and predators. They are also doing the a parachute game that is catching them catching animals."

There was also roleplaying for the youngsters.

The FFA students demonstrated how to show livestock for the fair where students chose what animal they wanted to be. Then one student drove the animal with a stick as the FFA teacher gave pointers on how to control the show animal.

There were a lot of unruly pigs and sheep.

Who knew livestock could laugh?

"The reason for all this is to expose the kids to Ag in day-to-day life," Lewark said. "Hopefully they will to be comfortable with Ag and want to learn more."