By Carla Wardin

Gateway North Elementary students in St. Johns recently spent a day taking classes at the FARM Science Lab and touring the AgroLiquid IQhub.

The FARM Science Lab, which is a 40-foot mobile classroom, travels around the state with a certified teacher inside, instructing students on science and agriculture. There are eight different lessons geared for K-5 students. The lab offers grade-level hands-on science experiments to increase students’ knowledge of how agriculture impacts their daily lives.

Doreen Logan, 2016 Michigan Farm Bureau Educator of the Year, had the chance to go with her kindergarten class.

In 2015, Gateway North Elementary was designated as an Ag-STEM (agriculture, science, technology, math) school. The partnership is based on the National Association for Professional Development Schools’ model. Central Michigan University’s preservice and student teachers worked with Gateway Elementary schoolteachers to incorporate Ag-STEM into the curriculum.

At the FARM Science Lab, the kindergarten class participated in the Build a Farm lesson. From the class description provided to the teachers, the students use a “visual representation of a web to explore the role agriculture plays in their daily lives

“Food and fiber was the focus,” Logan says. “My students had been focusing on that concept all year, so it was a good wrap-up to our studies. After the presentation, we built a farm in a bag that they could wear as a necklace. It included soil (coffee grounds), nutrients (glitter), water (blue sequins), sun (yellow sunburst sequin), animals (cow, pig, chicken sequin) and plants (green tree sequins). My students were easily able to identify all the parts and loved putting them together. The tie to agriculture is easily made in this lesson.

“Some kids commented, ‘This is the best day of my life,’ ‘Now I get to show my mom,’ and ‘I hope my crops grow!’” she says.

Eureka Elementary School has booked the FARM Science Lab in 2018. Jennette Billings, Eureka PTO president and substitute Student Support Paraprofessional, says, “It’s awesome that they can bring the FARM Science Lab around. Some kids have never experienced what goes on at a farm. I know I learned a lot.”

Logan adds, “Our semi-rural kids have much more access to agriculture than kids in Detroit or Grand Rapids. That doesn’t make it less interesting, though. One of my students asked, ‘Do we get to do this again next year in first grade?’”

The FARM Science Lab trip was coupled with a visit to AgroLiquid’s IQhub, which is a center for agriculture history, innovation, and exploration. It features museum-like exhibits and interactive learning stations designed to help people understand the history and future of food production. Gateway Elementary classes also take field trips to local farms, grow food and center learning around agriculture.

“I can see myself replicating the lesson in my room,” Logan says.

First-grader Roman Berkhousen was part of the class working with another lesson, the Window Garden program, which taught how seeds grow plants that provide food, fuel, oxygen and other essential products. Berkhousen says, “I loved it. My favorite part was when they gave us seeds to look at with a magnifying glass, and then we got to trade with each other, so we could see the different sizes and shapes of all the different kinds of seeds. At the end, we even got to plant our own seed to take home.”

The FARM Science Lab is fully funded by generous donations to the Michigan Foundation for Agriculture.

Wardin writes for the Michigan Foundation for Agriculture.