Ag lab enlightens students
EVANS CITY — Thanks to the state Department of Agriculture and the fundraising efforts of parents, students at the Evans City Elementary and Middle schools are enjoying hands-on science lessons.
A tractor-trailer on Jan. 13 pulled the state Farm Bureau's Mobile Agriculture Education Science Lab up to the school's rear entrance, where it will remain until Friday.
According to the bureau's president, Carl Shaffer, the lab creates an opportunity for students to learn about agriculture, the state's number-one industry, in a fun and hands-on way. He said students learn lessons focused on farm, food, fiber and the environment.
“With fewer children having a tie to farming, we created the Ag Lab to help teachers educate more students about the importance of agriculture,” Shaffer said.
Examples of experiments used in the fully equipped lab include germinating seeds under different conditions, creating crayons from soybeans and testing the water capacity of various soils.
Sandy Thompson, a fourth-grade teacher at the elementary side of the school, said the latter experiment was conducted last week by the students in her class.
The activity, called “Soak it Up,” is meant to teach a lesson on improving the quality of soil to retain more water. Thompson said the lesson augmented the school's science curriculum on land and water usage, which the students recently studied.
In the lab, her 23 students were divided into control and variable groups for the experiment on using additives to help farm soil retain water.
Both groups received a portion of soil, and the variable group treated their soil with a silicon-based additive. Equal amounts of water were run through both soil samples.
Thompson said students quickly noticed the untreated soil sample eroded, while the soil containing the additive lost very little water.
“It was a great result for the kids to visually see you can change the components of the soil,” Thompson said. “It was fascinating for the kids. They loved it.”
She said a presenter from the Department of Agriculture comes along with the mobile lab, and students asked that individual various questions about the experiment.
“They were curious about what additive it was,” Shaffer said. “It was so worth it. It tied in well with the curriculum.”
She said the ag lab is well-stocked, modern and roomy enough to hold 25 people comfortably.
She said the school's Parent-Teacher Organizations raised funds in the area's business and agriculture community to bring the lab to Evans City.
Those who helped fund the lab are the Butler County Farm Bureau, Burgh Implement, Agway in Mars, McElhinny Farms, Kellar Farms, the Pennsylvania Soybean Board, the American Agriculturalist Foundation and Armstrong.
Thompson said more than 700 students in kindergarten through fourth grade cycled through the lab last week.
Middle school students in grades five and six began visiting the lab today.
She said all the schools' students will benefit from the hands-on experiments available in the big green trailer at the back of the school.
“That lab was really impressive,” she said.
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