Among the information they were given: Moose means “twig eater” in the Algonquin Indian language, tomatoes can grow horns and sometimes the queen bee gets kicked out.
Beekeeper Jeff Irish has only missed one Franklin County Agricultural and Environmental Education Day. This year he brought his hive safely enclosed in a glass case and showed wide-eyed youngsters where the queen bee was hidden.
“Sometimes they decide to make her leave, and they get a new queen,” he said.
Irish’s wife, Rhonda, started the event, and Franklin County Soil and Water District has continued to organize and host each year’s hands-on morning of learning demonstrations and exhibits.
“Today, we had over 900 folks coming through, with students from SAD 58, SAD 9, SAD 74, Rangeley, and home-school children,” Rosetta Thompson, the district’s director, said.
Children waited patiently to make paper with Cherilee Budrick and Nancy Sloat from Verso Paper in Jay.
“It’s all mushy, but we squeeze out the water and roll the pulp flat,” Sloat said, as she lifted a frame filled with wood pulp from a container of water.
“Then we iron it and dry it, and then we have paper.”
Other students walked through the poultry barn, which houses several hundred ducks, geese and chickens. 4-H student volunteers held young birds and explained to the youngsters that their bones were hollow, and thus, very fragile.
“I saw an egg,” first-grader Matthew Thompson said. “I was looking in the cage, and there was one right in front of me.”
Classmate Lily James said her favorite part of the morning was visiting the miniature pony.
Although it was a day out of the classroom, students had assignments, which required them to ask questions of the exhibitors.
Courtney Schools, a teacher at SAD 9’s Cape Cod Hill Elementary School, said her students will share what they observed and what they learned.
“Ag Day teaches them about their community and to appreciate everything around them,” she said. “They learn where their food comes from and about all the different jobs people have.”
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- Kaden Beckler, Lucas Van Tynan, and Tyler Warren from Peru Elementary School came to the fair to learn about caring for farm animals, raising crops, making paper from wood pulp, and working and hunting in the forests. The 21st Agricultural and Environmental Education Day is hosted by the Franklin County Soil and Water Conservation District.
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- At the 21st Agricultural and Environmental Education Day, Roger Lambert explains to Damien Blanchard from Strong Elementary School how to mimic the sound of a bull moose.
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- Nancy Sloat taught students that paper is made from wood pulp, which has been ground to a powder and bleached. When the water is squeezed out, the pulp is ironed and dried. On Monday, Sloat and colleague Cherilee Budrick brought a smaller version of the company
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