Fourth graders from Habersham County’s public elementary schools and Trinity Christian School spent most of their morning Friday at the county fairgrounds learning about farming.
Approximately 550 students from across the county attended the event.
Gilbert Barrett, with the Farm Bureau and White County Farmers Exchange, coordinated the AG Day event. It included 70 volunteers working with students at 15 mostly ag-related stations.
“We have math and science standards weaved through all the presentations. They are here to learn where their food comes from, how it’s processed, and how it gets to the table,” he said.
Habersham County’s Student Ag Day has been an ongoing event for nearly 40 years. For the last two decades, it has been held at the fairgrounds. Prior to that, students actually visited a working farm.
“We do ag in the classroom and teach at different events. We are teaching equine today,” said Georgia Farm Bureau District 2 Women’s Leadership Chair Stephanie Branch.
Branch taught students several things about horses, including how to measure them using your hands. She turned that into a math problem, asking students to figure out how tall a horse is in inches and feet.
Georgia Mobile Dairy Classroom’s Nicole Duvall explained that she taught the children a little bit of everything about dairy cows, from a cow’s life cycle, a cow’s eating habits, to how often a cow has to be milked.
The Jersey cow used for the presentation was quite vocal. Every time the cow “mooed,” students erupted into laughter.
Sarah Summers and Mary Roberts work at Hardman Farms in Helen. They were at Ag Day to teach students how to make butter. They demonstrated how it was made in the early 1900s when Hardman Farm was agriculturally active.
Jessie Bland of the Georgia Peanut Commission was on hand to present to students the importance of peanuts in the state of Georgia. She taught them how peanuts grow and what products they’re used in.
Students also learned about beekeeping, raising cattle for beef, raising chickens, and soil conservation, among many other activities related to the agricultural community and economy.
