Flat Aggie Learns About Outdoor Education

Hi there, it’s Flat Aggie!

 

I visited KACEE, Kansas Association for Conservation andEnvironmental Education, and got to meet the people that work for KACEE and a dog named Benjamin during one of their meetings.  They gave me a cool sticker to wear on my shirt, it says WILD!  I’ll tell you more about that in a little bit!

KACEE taught me how much FUN it is to learn and explore the outdoors!  I found out that KACEE helps teachers learn how to take their students outside during school days and use the outdoors as a tool to teach them about math, science, reading, writing, art, music, social studies, technology and many more things.  KACEE uses some cool books called Project WILD, Project WET, and Project Learning Tree to help teach the teachers.  I even got to climb a tree!  I could see so far!  I could see so much of our state, Kansas.  It is a neat place to live and I can’t wait to explore it more!

KACEE also taught me about their Kansas Green Schools program.  Have you or your teachers heard of it before?  It’s so fun!  With the Kansas Green Schools program students and teachers get to investigate water, energy, waste & recycling, the health of the school environment, and the outdoors spaces at the school and in the community.  My favorite was learning about how to recycle!  Do you recycle at home or at your school?

The yummiest part of the day was when I learned about KACEE’s Kansas School Gardens program!  Did you know that many Kansas schools have gardens?  The students, teachers, and community members help to plant, weed, water, and harvest the food that grows in the school garden and then the best part is they get to eat it!  It’s so fresh and yummy.  I tried two vegetables that I didn’t think I liked, but when I got to try them fresh from the garden, I changed my mind.  I tried fresh peppers and fresh cucumbers and they were so tasty I wanted to learn how to grow them myself.

  

One of my favorite parts of the day was getting to learn about the WILD program.  It was soooo….WILD!!  One of the people that I met from KACEE started the WILD program.  He gave me the cool sticker you can see on my shirt and I was so excited to wear it! Do you know what I’m holding in this picture?  

It’s a fishing pole!  Fishing is just one of so many awesome things that students who have the WILD program at their school get to do.  With the WILD program, students get to go outdoors and have amazing adventures like fishing, hiking, canoeing, camping, bird watching, and more.  I can’t wait to have an amazing WILD adventure!

I had so much fun with KACEE learning all about the outdoors, Green Schools program, school gardens, and WILD.  I hope all kids get the opportunity to learn about each of their subject areas at school through the outdoors and they get to plant their own school gardens, watch and help their plants grow, and taste the fresh and yummy produce they harvest.  I can’t wait to have my next Kansas adventure!

Flat Aggie with Kansas Wheat Improvement Center Math

Flat Aggie recently visited the Kansas Wheat Improvement Center (KWIC).  The math there was nothing like anything he has seen in other Farmer Math sessions.  While the problems were very different, the calculations were still very familiar.

1.       The average temperature in Kansas during the month of March is 45°F.  High temperatures in Kansas in August can easily reach 109°F.  What is the difference between the average March temperature and the high temperature?

2.       New wheat varieties can take 12 years to develop using older methods, but using double haploid methods that has been cut in half.  How long does it take to develop a new wheat variety today?

3.       There are 2500 different varieties of wheat in the Wheat Genomics Resource Center.  There are 100 varieties per shelf.  How many shelves are in the resource center storage?

4.       A greenhouse at KWIC measures 150 feet by 30 feet. 

a.       What is the area of the KWIC greenhouse?

b.       What is the perimeter of the above greenhouse? 

Feel free to share this post and other Flat Aggie adventures with teachers, friends who homeschool and others interested in how food is raised for us all to eat.

ANSWERS: 1.)  64°F  2.) 6 years  3.)  25 shelves  4a.) 4,500 square feet  4b.)  360 feet

Flat Aggie visits the Kansas Wheat Innovation Center

Hey there, it’s Flat Aggie!

Today I got to adventure around the Kansas Wheat Innovation Center, where I toured the greenhouses, labs, test kitchen, seed bank and growth rooms. Let’s call it KWIC for short. The KWIC is located in Manhattan, Kansas! Manhattan is located in the northeastern part of Kansas, right in the heart of the Flint Hills. The average temperate in Manhattan during the month of March is 45 degrees, and in the month of August, temperatures can reach up to 109 degrees!

For those of you who don’t know, Kansas is the largest state for wheat production in the United States on average, so it was only fitting I spent the day hanging out at KWIC.

I started out the day by following the smell of freshly-baked bread into the test kitchen. I was greeted by Cindy Falk, the nutrition educator, and Julene DeRouchey, the nutrition educator assistant, who were baking bread in the shape of four-leaf clovers in honor of St. Patrick’s Day! When we got to them, they were fresh out of the oven, and we were able to do a little taste testing. They were delicious! They told me the KWIC’s test kitchen is always baking something good, and the smells radiate throughout the entire office. I had no problem spending a little extra time in there.

After I finished up our mid-morning snack, I went downstairs to the labs and greenhouses. Walking toward the labs, I stopped to learn a little bit about the double-haploid process. This is a production method adopted by Heartland Plant Innovations to decrease the amount of time spent developing new wheat varieties (think of varieties as new wheat families.) These new varieties will hopefully increase the potential to produce more wheat, boost the final quality of the wheat, improve this wheat family’s health and much more. 

 The goal at KWIC is to get new varieties of wheat into the hands of farmers, faster. It used to take 12-13 years to make a new wheat family that farmers can plant, but when these new varieties come to KWIC, the scientists can almost cut that time in half! Yay science!

 

 After learning about that service offered by HPI, I moved on to the labs, where I got to see people actually working on the double haploid process! I didn’t want to get in the way of their routine, so I stood back and watched while they worked. The double haploid process generally takes about a year to complete, so I only got to see a very short glimpse of it (wheat takes a long time to grow… just like you!)

 

After spending some time in the labs, I moved on to the wheat growth chambers. The growth chambers are used to give wheat a little bit of sunshine while it’s inside. Have you learned about photosynthesis? This is the process of how plants get their energy from the sun! If we’re inside, there’s no sun, so scientists have figured out what waves from the “light spectrum” that plants need most… And that just so happens to be the red and blue wavelengths! The rooms are generally colder than room temperature, and have bright red and blue lights that help the plants grow faster and stronger. The red and blue lights combine into the pinkish-purple color you see. The lights in the chamber were bright, and I didn’t bring my sunglasses, so I didn’t stay in long!

 

After I learned some cool facts about the growth chambers, I moved on to explore the seed gene bank. In the Wheat Genetics Resource Center, there are over 2,500 wheat species, and some of them date back many, many years! There are thousands of wild wheat varieties out there, and by keeping a gene bank, the scientists are able to improve new wheat varieties and the wheat industry! The seeds are stored at freezing cold temperatures, and this helps them stay good until the next time they are planted!

 

I left the gene bank wishing I had worn a heavier jacket due to the cold temperatures, and headed toward the greenhouses!

 

The KWIC is home to 22,750 square feet of greenhouse space, where researchers do it all! They are able to pot plants, process seeds and prepare the soil (not all dirt is created the same), all while they also develop advanced technologies for different wheat discoveries and genetic improvements (that means making new wheat varieties better than the old ones.) Thanks to Kansas wheat farmers, the KWIC is able to have these amazing resources to create great new wheat varieties!

Here I am hanging out in a wheat plant. I think I look good in green!

My time at the Kansas Wheat Innovation Center learning about the crop, greenhouses, and getting to taste some of their tasty bread has left me excited to learn more about the crop that makes Kansas famous, and learning about even more agriculture topics! Don’t forget to thank a farmer and have a happy National Agriculture Month.