Second graders learn about shaking butter, planting relays at AgSplosion event

Local second grade students learned agriculture can be fun during the AgSplosion event at the Nebraska Panhandle Research and Extension Center on Thursday, May 5.

Students from Morrill, Mitchell, Westmoor, Lincoln, Northfield and Minatare elementary schools split into nine groups to make their way around nine different activity stations to learn about where their food comes from — particularly that which is produced in their home state of Nebraska.

“It’s an ag festival … so we cover all the different parts of agriculture that you see in the Panhandle (and) actually the state of Nebraska,” Nathan Rice, Scotts Bluff County Extension educator, said.

Students had 20 minutes in each session to learn about a certain ag sector in Nebraska and then take part in a fun hands-on activity.

“We have all these different stations, and there’ll be a hands-on activity where they learn what actually happens in agriculture, the technology that goes into it, the careers that are associated with it, and just teach them where their food comes from,” Rice said.

Students completed a corn planting relay as they learned about ag technology and were sprayed with water as they pretended to be a growing cornstalk. For Westmoor second graders Sarayne Wylie, Jaedynn Wooden and Mariah Rodriguez making their own butter was their favorite part.

“You can make butter out of a kind of milk,” Wylie said, when asked about one new thing she learned at AgSplosion.

Wooden said of the butter, “We didn’t think it would actually work or taste good.”

“We thought it would taste bad,” Rodriguez said.

Turned out, the butter was delicious and fun to make as students took turns passing the jars to each other to shake up while they listened to an extension educator talk about dairy products. Other session topics included potatoes, wheat, swine, ag tech, animals, corn, beef and beans.

The AgSplosion event is held five times in five different locations across the Panhandle through the University of Nebraska Extension Office to allow for nearly all western Nebraska second grade students to have a chance to participate and learn about agriculture in a fun environment. Rice said he enjoyed bringing the program to Scottsbluff, in particular, as there are fewer farmer and rancher families in the Scottsbluff/Gering schools than in many of the other rural communities they’ve been in.

“There’s a lot of these kids that don’t know much about it, so it’s really neat to get Scotts Bluff and Gering here,” Rice said. “…Just a comparison — Mitchell raising their hand, half those kids were farmers and ranchers, and Northfield, there was one kid that had a family that was a rancher or farmer.”

Rice said the important thing is helping the students to truly understand about the important role agriculture plays in Nebraska through both hands-on activities and educational discussions.

“It’s quality learning. There is a lot of education that goes into it, and so it’s not just hands-on; they actually have to learn something in the process, too,” he said. “…Overall, I think they really enjoy it.”

*This article first appeared in the Scottsbluff Star-Herald on May 7, 2022.

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