In lieu of Agriculture Day, I spent the morning visiting with grade schoolers and middle schoolers about Agriculture. To say I was impressed would be an understatement! In this county, the school system has realized that Agriculture is the driving force of the economy and provides MANY jobs to residents of the county. As a result, they have made it a priority to educate students about agriculture in the classroom. They have a robotics team where they built a robot to catch genetically modified bugs...how cool is that?? The kids learned how to market their robot by finding its relevance to the farmer. One of the high school science teachers was present teaching the kids about hatching baby chicks. At our booth, we talked about row crops, horticulture, the 4-H program, and livestock. They also had the USA Rodeo Queen there signing pictures, a couple of the horse club members who had brought a horse and some equipment to share with the kids, and a goat producer who hauled a few goats to town! It was amazing to me how interested and how educated these students were about agriculture. They knew where their food came from and they appreciated it!
I taught them a little joke/conversation to have with people they run into: (student asks) "Where would you be without agriculture?" (the answer) "Naked and hungry!" Then I instructed the kids that they should explain further by going over the articles of clothing the person is wearing and how it is made (from cotton, leather, etc.) as well as the food they eat on a daily basis. The kids seemed to enjoy the joke....probably only because it had the word "naked" in it and they were middle schoolers. I'm sure the teachers will appreciate me for that one!
