On April 27 the Middletown FFA Chapter will hold the annual Ag Day celebration at Middletown High School. This year the decision has been made that there will be booths from different agricultural businesses at Ag day; as opposed to high school stations in the past.
Each department at MHS has been challenged with incorporating an aspect from their classes into Ag day. In the past, there have been many activities for the younger children to learn about agriculture in different ways.
These activities have included the Ag Olympics when students compete using agricultural products. There have been reading activities and art activities as well.
The goal of Ag Day is to display the diversity in the fields involved with agriculture. The goal is to also offer a fun field trip that can be educational to younger students and high schoolers.
Lexi Glover, MHS sophomore and the head of the committee for ag day said, “Instead of high school stations, there will be vendors from different businesses.”
Glover also said, “There will be a fall ag day to be discussed for next year that would be geared more towards high schoolers.”
The activities planned this year include a petting zoo, reading of “PB&J Hooray”, making maraccas; “Ag Olympics”, machinery row and a photo booth/play area.
“This event is important because we are teaching younger individuals about agriculture with different fields other than farming,” said Glover, “so we are trying to incorporate the middle school students as well as the vendors.”
Each station has a reference to a different field in the agricultural industry. The petting zoo symbolizes different animal productions.
Included in the petting zoo will be animal products as well as live animals such as sheep, goats and horses. This year there will be no poultry due to the Avian Influenza disease.
Kylie Pagliochini, MHS senior, will be bringing in alpaca fleeces for Ag day. Pagliochini agreed with Glover and said that, “Kids can learn about the importance of agriculture, because it is not all cows and chickens, it’s a lot more than farming.”
Machinary row displays different equipment that are needed for production. Justin Arnold, MHS junior, said he is bringing his “International 656.” Arnold said that “tractors and hay making equipment” are being brought in as well. He also said he agreed that Ag day helps to educate the younger kids about agriculture and get them interested.
Ag Olympics will include the unified sports class this year, as opposed to the athletic coaching class in the past. There are many classes that are helping with different stations these include: Ms.Martin’s child development class at the reading station, Ms.Lehman’s photography class at the photo booth and Ms.L’s art class with the art activity.
