Students explore farming through Middletown High's 'Ag Day'

About 260 first-grade students from the Middletown area planted seedlings, watched goats be milked and saw alpaca wool being spun into yarn as part of Middletown High School's annual "Ag Day" event Monday.

Sarah Shriner, the school's FFA (formerly Future Farmers of America) group advisor and agriculture teacher, said Ag Day has been held at the school for at least the past 20 years. It serves to teach young children "about where their food and clothes come from," she said. "Most kids have no clue that milk comes from a cow or that tomatoes come from a plant."

About 50 of the high school's 160 FFA group members and agriculture students participated, Shriner added. First grade students from Myersville Elementary School, Wolfsville Elementary School and Middletown Primary School visited.

Each elementary school student received a "passport" which they had to get stamped at various stations set up behind the school. During the visit, students were supposed to watch hay baling and wool spinning demonstrations, plant a tomato seedling in a paper cup, get an up-close look at a tractor, visit with a cow, a chicken and a goat, sit in on an "agriculture story time" and learn a little bit about farm equipment by touring a collection of tractors that were brought in by students.

Shriner said some students drove their tractors to school while others, who work with animals for their FFA projects, brought a range of creatures from cows to mice. Some volunteered to read to the elementary students or served as overall tour guides. Those who participated were excused from their classes for the day.

Kiley Slimmer, a 14-year-old freshman at Middletown High, said she remembers Ag Day from when she was in first grade at Myersville Elementary School.

"I remember coming to see all the animals," she said.

On Monday, she got to introduce the children to her horse, Cody. She said they really seemed to enjoy seeing the animals and tractors close up. Kiley hopes to be an agriculture teacher someday, she said.

Elaine Lowman, a 17-year-old senior, said she likes that the event is fun for the kids but also helps inform them about farming.

"None of these kids have seen this kind of stuff," she said. "We like to spread the word to little kids where their food comes from... and how much work it takes for people to make food," she said. Elaine hopes to major in agriculture education in college.

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