- Kids from five Allentown schools got a chance to learn hands-on agriculture lessons
- The sessions run on Tuesday and Wednesday, put on by the Lehigh County Agricultural Society
- The event is meant to spark an interest and understanding of agriculture — but not necessarily to push kids into it as a profession when they're older
ALLENTOWN, Pa.— Kids from five schools got a chance to learn about the agriculture industry on a field trip to the Agri-Plex at the Allentown Fair Grounds.
The two-day session is called Ag Education Day and is put on by the Lehigh County Agricultural Society, held at the Agri-Plex at the Allentown Fairgrounds.
Students from Hiram Dodd, Roosevelt Elementary and Newcomers at Lincoln joined on Tuesday. The other two schools will join on Wednesday: Muhlenberg Elementary and Central Elementary.
"Everything you eat doesn't come from the grocery store — it actually comes from a farm, and that's what we're here to teach kids today."Beth Gruber, CEO/Chair of the Lehigh County Agricultural Society
'It comes from a farm'
The idea came from Beth Gruber, CEO of the Lehigh County Agricultural Society, who said she believes it's important for kids to understand the big picture of where their food comes from.
"Everything you eat doesn't come from the grocery store — it actually comes from a farm," Gruber said. "And that's what we're here to teach kids today."
The educational session is in its second year, and organizers say it has gained support from the Allentown School District.
It features a series of booths where volunteers or representatives from different agricultural sectors give talks and demonstrations on different topics. These stations include one-on-one dairy, with a live cow milking on a mechanical statue of a cow, and another with a beekeeper who explains the different types of bees and the overall honey-making process (with a free sample of honey after for the kids).
There are also two stations that feature live animals — a pony and one with live sheep.
Gruber said the purpose of the expo is not formally to push kids into the Agricultural sector when they become adults — it's not a "recruiting event" so to speak — but she said it's a push to spark interest and understanding among the kids.
"It's just to appreciate when they get that glass of milk or go eat apple sauce to know where it came from and how it started," Gruber said.
Positive response from kids
At the dairy exhibit, part of the exhibit included kids making their own butter and shaking up milk, while "Shake Your Booty" by KC and the Sunshine Band played on a speaker, somehow rigged up so the sound was produced from inside the statue of a cow.
The song was a big hit, and the teachers were singing along as the kids shook cups of milk in one hand, while some tried out different dance moves, some looking like they were out of the '60s or '70s as most kids here were in the fourth grade.
We spoke to fourth graders Alex Olmo and Emma Reyes to ask them what they thought. Both said they were having a great time.
Emma Reyes said she especially liked the topic of agriculture because of a family connection.
When asked what her favorite part of the day was, Reyes said, "Milking the cows, because I wanted to go to the Dominican Republic because my grandma has a farm there and I wanted to be part of the farm."
Reyes said she knows it's hard work, but she loves the idea of working on her grandmother's farm no matter how challenging it is.
Olmo said this is hands-down his favorite field trip.
"Ten out of ten," he said, elaborating that the number ten indicated the best possible field trip, while zero would indicate the worst.
"I'm most excited for petting the animals," he said — his group had not yet been to the section of the event that included petting ponies and sheep.
Busy bees
Another popular exhibit at the Agri-Plex was the beekeeping seminar led by beekeeper Casey Darnell.
Darnell works with the Lehigh Valley Beekeepers Association as well as Penn State Extension.
She enthusiastically engaged an entire class of about thirty fourth graders, wearing a white beekeeping suit, and dressed head-to-toe in cartoonish beekeeping paraphernalia, like finger puppets of honeybees, and earrings that were made out of wooden honey dippers. Her shoes were even Converse Chuck Taylors, colored yellow, black and gold like two bumble bees.
The actual content of Darnell's beekeeping seminar was objectively less hands-on than the other stations. After all, she was competing against literal petting zoos.
But what stood out about Darnell's instruction style was that she made sure each kid felt heard. On many occasions, there were times for kids to raise their hands and express what they thought about the different types of bees. "I like honey in tea, even though I'm not supposed to drink it," one fourth grader said, then confessing that she had stolen some tea from her father's cupboard without his knowledge.
"I have kids of my own, so that helped a lot," Darnell said when asked where she learned to teach. "And it's fun, I mean having kids helps and teaching kids — I actually did some preschool teaching like junior-K, so I have a little experience teaching kids already."
She also said she just loves bees. She got into beekeeping after her father heard an interview on the radio with a beekeeper, and decided on the drop of the hat to take it up as a father/daughter project.
"That was about twelve years ago, he was like 'Hey Case, you want to keep bees?' and I was like 'That sounds awesome, let's do it,' So we started exploring beekeeping clubs, and one thing led to another, and now today I take care of 100 colonies and teach kids about bees," she said.
In Darnell's session, she explained some easy ways to differentiate between honey bees and yellow jackets; the honey bees are more furry because they can absorb pollen in their fuzz and the kids came up to thank her after. She also gave out some little plastic sticks full of honey, which was another big hit.
