Elementary, Colorado State University Students Partcipate in Agricultural Adventure for Youth
Note to Editors: Media are invited to attend. Please contact Dell Rae Moellenberg for further information. Students will come from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. and 11:30 am. to 1:30 p.m.
More than 750 third-grade students from northern Colorado will join Colorado State University students from the College of Agricultural Sciences in Agricultural Adventure for Youth Sept. 24 at the Colorado State Agricultural Research & Development Education Center.
Ag Adventure is a program developed to educate elementary school students about the importance of agriculture in their daily lives, such as common products that agriculture provide including milk, cheese, corn, wheat, and wool for clothing, before those products are available in stores. The program provides students with focused, hands-on activities at ARDEC to teach about a wide range of agricultural enterprises and products.
"Most kids don’t have the opportunity to understand where their food comes from," said Marshal Frasier, Colorado State University professor and advisor to Ag Adventure. "The program is important because it teaches students about the significance of agriculture and gives students another way to apply what they are learning in the classroom to the outside world."
Elementary school students participate in six different learning centers spending about 20 minutes engaged in several activities. Each center addresses a different facet of agriculture such as wool processing, dairy, beef, sheep production, crop production and soil and water.
Throughout the day, students will experience real life examples of physical science, life science, scientific investigation, math and earth science by learning how wool changes through the production process, estimating and measuring feed and milk, exploring water properties and experimentation and identifying causes and impacts of soil erosion.
Student clubs and organizations from Colorado State, which represent all facets of the agricultural industry, were involved in developing workshops and demonstrations for the day. Students from Colorado State, elementary school teachers and district administrators developed learning activities to match state and district standards to assure valuable educational content. Through the program, teachers are also provided with additional materials for future classroom discussion.
Ag Adventure is open to northern Colorado elementary students who are chaperoned by their school. For more information, contact Marshall Frasier at (970) 491-6071.
ARDEC is a biological field facility for conducting integrated agricultural research, instruction and outreach programs in soil, plant, water, animal and food sciences, located about 10 miles northeast of Fort Collins.
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