An Agriculture and Natural Resources Awareness Week was held from May 23rd through May 26th, 2011 for almost 400 Warren County 4th grade students at the Hatch Run Conservation Demonstration Area.   The students participated in hands-on programs related to milk and its various properties, and making butter.  The Warren County Conservation District staff and teacher naturalist volunteers, Warren County Penn State Cooperative Extension, Warren County PA Farm Bureau, Warren County Future of Ag Task Force, and Warren County Dairy Princess, provided hands-on experiences in water, stream, and soil studies, dairy industry, forestry, and food origin awareness.

The “Mobile Ag Education Science Lab” is agriculture on wheels.  Taking agriculture to the classroom was developed by the PA Farm Bureau with several corporate sponsors.  The Warren County students were engaged in an experiment to determine which made the best butter — buttermilk, whole milk or heavy cream.  The 40 ft mobile unit travels throughout Pennsylvania with instructors, to provided hands-on science experiences by helping students to identify problems, form hypothesis, conduct experiments, collect data and draw conclusions.  The 12 work stations in the mobile unit can also provide scientific experiments related to food safety and nutrition, Pennsylvania’s primary commodities, environment, biotechnology, etc.  For more information go to www.aglab.pfb.com

In addition to the Mobile Ag Education Science Lab, the students had additional programs about agriculture and where their food comes from, and also explored and studied the Hatch Run stream, learned about soil, did tree identification and leaf/bark rubbings, and learned about the importance of trees in Warren history and today.  The 4 day event provided hands-on learning for students addressing agriculture, science and conservation standards of Pennsylvania.