VERSAILLES – The Versailles FFA hosted a Farm Day Friday for area students and their parents. This year seven schools attended, spending two to three hours on the farm.
Students attended from Ansonia Elementary, Versailles Elementary, Franklin Monroe Elementary, Russia Elementary, Covington Elementary, Holy Angels Catholic Elementary, Bradford Elementary and Piqua Catholic Elementary.
“The sole purpose of this day is to educate children as well as their parents about where the food comes from and the importance of the agriculture industry and the role that it plays,” said Dena Wuebker of Versailles Agriculture Education and the FFA advisor.
Farm Day was set up in rotating stations, 12 each. Each station lasted 13 to 15 minutes. The stations showed how farms contribute to prominent components in food. At the first station, cookies and milk, the students were shown the ins and outs of cookie ingredients. To make cookies, you need eggs, which come from chickens, leading further down the line, all the way to the soil.
The french fries station was the same concept as the cookies and milk, except students left with french fries to munch on, instead of a cookie like the previous one. The wife life station gave students information on hunting, as well as looking at real animal fur.
A newer station was the agricultural info. At this one, students made bracelets with the various parts of the agriculture industry, which was color-coded. One of the kids favorite parts of Farm Day was the petting zoo, which had goats, rabbits, puppies, kittens, baby chicks and calves.
At the water quality station, students learned about different pollutants and why it is so important to have clean water. There was also a yogurt station where they learned about making yogurt. All the yogurt was donated by Dannon.
The pork and poultry stations gave students the insight on how to properly take care of the animals, as well as what certain things are made from them, such as violin strings coming from beef or pork meat. At the safety station, the students learned about how to maintain safety around all of the farming machinery.
They were also shown a demonstration about seat belt safety from the Auglaize County Car Teens Program. They used a dummy to show the effects of not wearing a seat belt versus how it protects.
The last two stations were plants and crops, another new station this year, where they played a game to win a package of seeds and soybeans where students made plastic out of soy. They teamed up with the Ohio Soybean Association to make the soy plastic.
“We had all kinds of sponsors that really helped in terms of making this particular day possible,” Wuebker said.
She said some of them included Farm Credit Services of Versailles, Central State University, Reiter Dairy and the Hoelscher Farms.
“I’d like to thank Hoelschers because they graciously are allowing us to be here,” Wuebker said. “We can’t have a farm day without being on a farm.”
