Andy Close
SHEFFIELD, Pa. – Students at Sheffield Area Elementary School recently had the opportunity to experience the Mobile Ag Education Science Lab.
The lab is a 40-foot mobile classroom that travels across Pennsylvania bringing an interactive field trip-style experience directly to schools and students.
“The kids really enjoyed it,” said SAES second-grade teacher Kelly Stoddard. “I was out there with them of course.”
Because of PSSAs, the students had a little more time to get some hands-on experience.
“We did the little red hen,” Stoddard said. “They talked about what was on the farm. They did people, they did tractors, they did animals, and learning how all of those things work together on a farm.”
That was one of three hands-on exercises Stoddard’s students did.
“Then we did a popcorn caper, which was really cool,” Stoddard said. “I didn’t even know, there are five different kinds of corn, but the popping corn is a totally separate corn. It has air in it and they took a cob and put it in the bag that it came with and put it in the microwave and it came out popcorn. To lead up to that, she read a story about the different kinds of popcorn and how you put it in the ground to grow, and the whole process of everything.”
The third experiment that the second graders did was a “sink or float.”
“There were different items on a plate ready for us, and we had to predict whether it would sink or whether it would float,” Stoddard said. “And then we did the observations. We looked to see what the difference was. And she had a popcorn kernel and actual popcorn, rice krispies, cheese balls, beans, so different things and we dropped them in and the observer got to tell us if they sunk or floated. That was really cool.”
Stoddard felt that it was a great experience for her students to learn all about agriculture, living in an area where it plays such a key role.
“That’s something we talked about,” Stoddard said. “We don’t have a bunch of farms out here, per se, but not very far away we have a ton of farms, so it was nice for our kids to be able to talk about that.”
And the kids had a lot of fun doing it. The students will also have the opportunity again next year, with the lab coming back to Sheffield March 11-15 in 2024.
“My kids were so happy every time I said we’re going back to the ag lab again today,” Stoddard said. “They absolutely loved it.”
