Farm to table: students learn where food comes from

THERMOPOLIS – Thermopolis students in grades third through sixth attended the Farm to Table Ag Expo, Thursday at the Hot Springs County Fairgrounds to learn about agriculture and how their food goes from the field or ranch to their table.

"The expo is to help educate students about what ag is, opportunities in ag and where their food comes from," Thermopolis Middle School vocation teacher Becky Martinez said.

"The goal is to springboard off recent legislation allowing more locally grown food into school lunch programs," Hot Springs County Farm Bureau representative Ray Shaffer said.

Students received information and hands-on experience while visiting 11 stations. Each station's presenter was a local rancher, farmer or producer with expertise in the subject that they were covering. The stations were: honey, potatoes, gardening, wheat, ag history, sugar beets, livestock, beef cuts, beef production, butter and a photo booth.

Over 200 students were broken up into groups to visit each station with a volunteer student from Martinez's farm-to-school class, an elective for seventh-and eighth-grade students, joining each group. Each volunteer had a set of clues that the students in each group needed to figure out to learn which station they were to visit next. The volunteers also gave out tickets for door prizes to the students who answered station presenter's questions correctly.

At the butter station, Sonja Becker explained to students about milk and the things made from milk. She explained that unpasteurized milk is legal to drink in Wyoming, but that the person who purchases it needs to be the person who drinks it. In other words she said, she can't sell it to stores just individual people. She also showed the students a separator which separates the cream from the milk when it is warm and how to make butter in a blender, a much easier way than in the days of old with a butter churn.

Rancher Joey Agar and her daughters Rylee and Taylor were the presenters of the beef cuts booth and they explained and showed the students where specific cuts of meat came from on a cow. They also advised the students that other products such as gummy bears, marshmallows and gelatin are made from the bone marrow; that all parts of the cow are used and used in many different products such as hair for paint brushes and bones and hides for items such as camera film.

Students got a break from serious learning at the photography station where they were able to put on cowboy hats and funny faces to have their picture taken with teachers joining in on the fun.

Presenters and students appeared to enjoy teaching and learning in a well-organized event that Martinez hopes to make an annual or bi-annual event. Martinez stated that she would like to do another expo in the fall when food is ready to harvest. She said that while there was a gardening station, not much is produced this time of year.

It would be nice to get some of the big farm machinery here, like a combine for the students to climb around on to get an understanding about what goes into harvesting the food that they eat, she said.

The event was sponsored by the Hot Springs County Farm Bureau in cooperation with the Hot Springs County Pioneer Association and Hot Springs County School District No. 1.