The Donley County AgriLife Extension hosted fifth grade students from six area schools last Tuesday, October 31, for their 20th Ag Literacy Day.
A total of 138 students from Clarendon, Hedley, Memphis, Claude, Silverton, and Valley attended the event with 29 high school students helping from Clarendon, Memphis, and Silverton.
County Agent Leonard Haynes said the students learned about agriculture from ten separate stations covering the following topics: beef cattle, small grain production, small animal livestock, rainfall effects / soil conservation, groundwater conservation, peanut production, cotton production, tractor PTO safety, stream bed formation, and Texas outdoor and game laws.
“Our overall goal is to educate kids as we have more kids away from farms who think everything originates at the grocery store,” Haynes said. “We show them that from the time they woke up today, agriculture touches their lives from clothes to deodorant to brushing their teeth. So many things come from ag byproducts.”
Demonstrations at the stations included how a cotton gin works, the effects of soil erosion, how flowing water affects topography, how small grains are milled for food, where different cuts of meat come from, and more.
Haynes said the program started as a shared activity between the Donley and Hall county extension services, but now invites schools from other areas to participate.
In addition to the ten stations students rotated through, all students were presented with a powerline and farm safety demonstration from Greenbelt Electric Cooperative, and the Southwest Mobile Dairy also presented a live milking demonstration to highlight where milk and milk byproducts come from.
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