September
Mrs. Moore to Class: "Class what does a chicken eat?"
Class: "corn", "grain", "insects"
Mrs. Moore: "You are correct, but what is grain?" Children now look at me with puzzled looks like I am from Mars!
Nobody could tell me what grain was. So, I decided to try a different approach, "where does corn come from?"
Class: "The Store!"
So, September starts with the reality that Mars will not have feed stores and corn does not come from a store because there was a farmer that grew that corn. That grain is a mixture of different plants that we feed to animals.
To learn about the types of crops chickens eat and how they grow created a list of different crop plants found in grain and that they might feed their chickens at home. The students paired up with another student and choice one type of crop to plant (soybeans, sunflowers, corn, beets, sweet peas, and lettuce). One partner placed their plants outside in the cold frame while the other partner placed theirs under growing lights. Over the next month, students compared the growth rates, watering rates, temperature and light differences and how all of the mentioned variables affected the growing rate of their plants.
While their plants grew, students used Agriculture in the Classroom activities to study how to utilize their land size with the size of the plant vs the productivity of the plants.
Ben Grandon from Randolph County Cooperative Extension visited September 25th and gave students feedback on their plants' growth, how they could improve upon their research and prepared them for the hydroponics that was coming in the near future.