Students Get Plenty Of Hands-On Learning During Field Day

GLADE SPRING, Va. – These bugs might be small, but they’re indicators of something that’s a big deal: the quality of the water we drink.
“These little guys are important. They’re part of our habitat,” Will Stein, a master naturalist and volunteer, told the 600 sixth-graders who descended on the Highland Dairy Farm Tuesday and Wednesday for hands-on learning about agriculture, stream health and resource conservation.
Stein was talking about the squirming, wriggling and writhing larvae collected from the bottom of a stream and spread out on a table for the kids to handle.
“I found a bug!” proclaimed Halee Crane, 11, of Glade Spring Middle School, as she used a pair of tweezers to pick the tiny critters out of the net that captured them. “I found a lot of netspinners … they look like worms.”
Leigh King, a master naturalist and volunteer at the annual event, said netspinners are indicators of a good, healthy stream – something important for fishermen who want to catch fish but also for the drinking water supply.
“I actually like these things,” said Kayla Christian, 11, as she held up a squirming crawfish. “[This field trip] is kind of fun because you get out of school and you get to get out here and catch bugs.”
Every sixth-grader at Washington County’s four middle schools – Glade Spring, Wallace, Damascus and E.B. Stanley – attended the Farm Field Day. They all seemed eager to see what critters had come out of the creek.
“Coming down here, they said, ‘bugs, eww,’ ” said Kirby Lloyd, a Glade Spring parent and field trip chaperone. “But now look at ’em. They don’t seem to be afraid now.”
Identifying the bugs in the net was just one activity. The students also visited a dairy barn and participated in an assortment of conservation activities related to their sixth-grade science curriculum.
“I like the farm smell and stuff like that,” said Katlin Nipper, 12. “It’s gross, but I like it.”
“They like to eat and they like to poop,” Bailey Lloyd, 11, said of the cows she saw.
Lucee Kossler, an agriculture conservation specialist for the Holston River Soil and Water Conservation District, said she hopes the students left with hands-on knowledge on how a farm works – and an understanding that it takes smart people to run a farm effectively.
“This is an event to stress the importance of agriculture to a generation that unfortunately doesn’t have the ties that generations past have,” Kossler said.
She also said it’s good for kids to know where their food comes from – beyond the grocery store.
Maika Atwell, 11, lives on a farm. She liked the trip, too, and said it’s good for her classmates to have a chance “to know what farmers go through … and what it is to be on a farm.”

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