Published: October 01, 2008 08:37 am         

Mobile Science Lab

Studying everyday items at Cresaptown Elementary

CRESAPTOWN — A hands-on experience is far better than a visual demonstration. Just ask Cresaptown Elementary School fourth-grader Collin Cook.

Watching someone demonstrate how agriculture affects your life on a daily basis isn’t a lesson that would be well-received “because you wouldn’t get to experiment for yourself and enjoy it.”

Cook is a student among more than 350 students in kindergarten through fifth grade scheduled to learn in the “Food, Fiber & You” Mobile Science Lab. The lab, sponsored by the Maryland Agriculture Education Foundation, offers one of three programs intended to get children learning about how everyday things in their world impact their lives.

The lab is parked behind the school all this week. Parents can conduct a walk-through today during parent/teacher conferences from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m.

Cresaptown Principal Roxanne Reuse said the school was extended the invitation to host the science lab through Dot Workman, who is “very involved with (getting) agriculture in the classroom.”

“It’s cool and fun,” said Cook, wrapping up the manufacturing of a wool bookmark made with classmate Quinn Ahearn, “because you get to learn about cool stuff.”

Fourth-grade teacher Nancy Hamilton agreed.

“I think they get real-life, hands-on experience, which is really good,” Hamilton said Tuesday morning while 18 of her students participated in a 50-minute session with Wayne Buckingham, lab instructor.

She said the course is an extension of what her students learned a few weeks ago during a visit by the University of Maryland Extension Office. The children can see exactly what goes into making some of the common items they see — and use — every day.

“They get to see where (a product) comes from,” Hamilton said. “So many children don’t think about that.”

The inside walls are lined with a static display of everyday items including clothing, soap, toothpaste, cat food, compact discs and laundry detergent. Items are instantly familiar to the students. They don’t learn how it relates to the agricultural industry, however, until the lesson begins.

The coating of CDs is made from pig fat; laundry detergent contains hydrogenated soybean oil. Each of the items is from — or is created, in part, with — materials coming from farms or the animals that live on them.

Each Cresaptown teacher had the opportunity to select age-appropriate activities that meet the Maryland Voluntary State Curriculum standards. Some students made cheese. Some experimented with yeast. One second-grade class will make soybean crayons.

All of it, said Reuse, offers students “a hands-on activity they don’t normally get to do in the classroom.”

For more information on the Mobile Science Lab, visit www.maefonline.com or call (410) 939-9030. The lab costs up to $1,800 for an entire week. The program is supported, in part, by the Maryland Farm Bureau and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

Contact Kevin Spradlin at kspradlin@times-news.com.