By Tiffany Thompson, Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 16, 2007 — The Stanly County Agri-Civic Center will house the third annual Agriculture Awareness Days Wednesday through Friday. The event will begin at 9 a.m. and end at 2 p.m. each day.
Third-grade students from more than 15 local public, private and home schools are invited to attend the event.
“This event provides a hands-on experience for the kids,” said Lori Ivey, county extension director for the NC State University North Carolina Cooprative Extension.
“We expect approximately 770 students to participate.”
Each school provided their preference of which day to attend, and then the schools were grouped into classrooms.
Students in each classroom will begin the day at one station, and they will rotate to the next station every 20 minutes.
There will be 12 stations for the students to participate in, including Corn- Kernel to Meal, All About Bees, Farm Animals and several others.
In the Corn-Kernel to Meal exhibit, students have the opportunity to learn about corn and corn products. Then they will grind kernels of corn into corn meal.
A live bee hive will be in a cage at the All About Bees exhibit, and a beekeeper will be working with the bees. The beekeeper will smoke the bees out of the hive, and remove racks from it. Students will then be able to taste honey products.
There will be two exhibits for the Farm Animals. One exhibit will have beef cattle, while the other has sheep and goats.
Students will also receive a healthy snack during the event, which will consist of popcorn grown in Stanly County.
The event is available to third-grade students because the activities and exhibits closely align with the competencies the students will learn during the year.
Call Tiffany Thompson at (704) 982-2121 ext. 24 or e-mail snaponline1@yahoo.com.
