(03/02/17) DELHI, La. – Tallulah Academy third-grade teacher Elizabeth Hill recently taught a lesson about how some plants do not reproduce from seed, so she was delighted to see her students’ enthusiasm when they heard about how sweet potatoes are grown from plant slips from sprouted potatoes while attending Ag Adventures in Delhi.

“They turned around and looked at me like, ‘Oh, I know about that,’” Hill said.

Like many teachers looking for ways to provide their students with enhanced learning experiences, Hill said her students understand better when they do hands-on activities.

“Children learn better when they are actively engaged,” said Keith Collins, Richland Parish county agent and coordinator of the LSU AgCenter-sponsored event. “With Ag Adventures, we want to plant a seed in children about the value of agriculture and how important it is to the economy of our country as well as right here in northeast Louisiana.”

About 950 students in second and third grades and their teachers took part in the two-day educational event held Feb. 20 and 21.

For 10 years, Ag Adventures has helped children learn more about the agricultural products grown in northeast Louisiana and how they are used in everyday life, said Terri Crawford, AgCenter regional coordinator and co-coordinator of the event.

Students visited interactive learning stations highlighting sweet potato production and processing, gardening, honeybees, handwashing and germs as well as a mini farm, Crawford said.

In the mini farm, six exhibits were set up for hands-on activities and educational talks about different livestock species, including dairy and meat goats, lambs, chickens, rabbits and a donkey, said Union Parish county agent Brandon Reeder.

Two mini farm activities concentrated on dairy products. Students made butter and milked Louella, a wooden model of a cow, Reeder said.

Berg Jones Elementary teacher Tara McKeller said many of her second-graders have never been exposed to farm animals, and because children are tactile learners, they will remember these personal experiences.

“I just wanted them to know that agriculture is vital to the economy of north Louisiana, and a lot of them never have a chance to see that,” she said.

AgCenter horticulture agent Kerry Heafner told students about the importance of honeybees to plant pollination.

“We want them to see the connection, so if we have no honeybees pollinating the flowers, we would just have a tree with flowers, and there would never be any fruit,” Heafner said.

Barkdull Faulk Elementary teacher Rachel Turnbough said her students would take a lot of what they learned back to school, such as the honeybee information that correlated with their reading and science studies.

“We also grow plants in our classroom and have a garden in the common area at our school, so this puts it all together for our students,” Turnbough said.

The sweet potato station aimed to teach youth about production and product development and how sweet potatoes are graded for the market, said AgCenter extension associate Myrl Sistrunk.

“We have potatoes set up like a row of sweet potatoes in the field and give the children a chance to go through and pick out the canners, No. 1s and jumbos because the different grades of potatoes have different values to the farmer,” he said.

Ag Adventures is one of several agricultural awareness events held in northeast Louisiana and a valuable opportunity to expose children to the importance of agriculture to the economy and people’s way of life in this part of the state, said AgCenter regional director Tara Smith.

“We have a youth field day at the Sweet Potato Research Station each fall that targets middle and high school students, then Ag Alley hosts first- and fourth-graders in January in West Monroe, with Ag Adventures following in February for second- and third-graders,” Smith said. “We try to reach a wide age range with our ag awareness events.”

Sponsored by the LSU AgCenter, Ag Adventures is jointly coordinated by agriculture, 4-H and family and consumer science agents who develop and present the educational stations.

Baby, a black Dutch bantam chicken, took a break from all the excitement at Ag Adventures by briefly perching on the head of Tyrell Jones, a Berg Jones Elementary School second-grader, during Ag Adventures. Photo by Karol Osborne/LSU AgCenter

LSU AgCenter horticulturist Kerry Heafner, right, explains the difference between a wicker skep hive and the modern-day Langstroth hive widely used by beekeepers during Ag Adventures. Photo by Karol Osborne/LSU AgCenter