In an effort to help advocate for agriculture, the Henley Ag Leadership class set up an Ag Field Day for the Henley Elementary students on October 5^th, 2012. The leadership students were split into groups and each group came up with a different activity for the students participate in. The various activities included a farm animal ‘petting zoo’, pumpkin pie in a bag, growing bracelets, living necklaces, a worm condo, and a straw bale maize.

With the petting zoo, several Henley FFA members brought their animals for display and to interact with the elementary students.  The various animals included mini horses, a heifer, a bull calf, a duck, chickens, and a turkey. At the pumpkin pie in a bag activity, the elementary students helped mix together ingredients in a bag to make pumpkin pie.  After students were educated with a few ‘pumpkin fun facts’ each one received a sample of the ‘pie’ to eat it. Growing bracelets were made from pipe cleaners and pony beads. The students placed different colored beads on a green pipe cleaner, and each bead represented something that a plant needs to grow. For example a blue bead would represent water. To make living necklaces the kids put a bean and a wet cotton ball in a small bag with yarn for them to wear around their necks. The youngsters were told how to care for their seed and to watch the bean sprout inside the bag a few days later. At the worm condo activity the kids learned about worms and why they are important for agriculture. They also got to see/hold worms in an aquarium ‘condo’ and got a package of gummy worms to eat. The straw bale maize was put together by Ms. McDermott’s math/architecture class at the Henley Middle School. The maize provided a way for the kids to burn some energy and have fun doing so.  Henley FFA would like to send a special thank you to Bart Fleming for donating the straw for this activity.

            To participate, the elementary classes signed up for times throughout the day, and stayed for about 40 minutes. In those 40 minutes the kids had about 6 minute rotations at each activity. All of the elementary students seemed to have a great time at each activity and the high school students had fun teaching them. Overall the second annual Ag Field Day was a success!