Van Wert Elementary students interact with Agriculture this week

Third through Fifth graders at Van Wert Elementary School are getting an education about what grows in Georgia’s fields with a stop in Polk County by the Georgia Ag Experience trailer this week.

Polk County is the latest stop during the school year for the Georgia Ag Experience trailer, a combined effort to provide a mobile classroom for teaching elementary age students with a better understanding of how agriculture works in Georgia, and right here locally.

The 36-foot trailer gives elementary students the chance to take a virtual field trip to a farm without leaving their school. Colorful farm photos, interactive technology and displays of products made from various ag commodities grown in Georgia highlight the importance of agriculture to their daily lives. The Georgia Ag Experience highlights Georgia’s poultry, beef cattle, cotton, peanut, timber, horticulture, fruit, vegetable and pecan farms.

What’s inside the trailer

Wood products are one of Georgia’s biggest exports and are represented
Raising chickens are big business in Georgia, and much of the process is automated thanks to feeders and drinkers like this on display.
Beef and dairy cattle are among the many animals raised on Georgia farms.
Where does it come from? This interactive game helps students determine the source of many of their produce items grown in Georgia.
Cotton is a staple of the south, and many different products are made from the fabric of our lives. Georgia is one of the leading producers of cotton in the United States.
An exhibit on greenhouses ensure students understand how they are able to get fresh produce year round.

The Polk County Farm Bureau hosted the trailer this year, and took part in the experience as it remains at Van Wert through Friday. Hannah Hall, the Educational Programs Assistant for the Georgia Foundation for Agriculture.

Groups of 12 are brought through the trailer at a time, and so to determine which group went first, Hall had students play a quiz game on what grows in Georgia.

WATCH Subscriber Video: Kids play Georgia Ag Quiz Game at Van Wert Elementary School

GALLERY: Students enjoy visit from Georgia Ag Experience

During the opening day of the visit on Wednesday, Students learned how farmers plant and harvest their crops, take care of their livestock and preserve the natural resources on their farms. The classroom also highlighted the many career options in agriculture.

All exhibits and lessons that are part of the Georgia Ag Experience have been professionally designed to meet science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) standards.

The Georgia Foundation for Agriculture is partnering with county Farm Bureau offices across the state to arrange local mobile classroom visits. They travel across all of Georgia’s 159 counties throughout the school year visiting elementary students. This is the fourth year the trailer has been operating.