Lincoln Third Grade Visit

This morning area farmer Brent Fuchs and I visited the third grade class at Lincoln Elementary in Faribault. We talked to a group at 9:20 and another at 10:20. We begin with a little bag of corn and soybeans. We relate corn and soybeans to all kinds of food items from the grocery store that they would recognize, corn flakes, chips, taco shells, pop, the list goes on and on.

We tell the third graders that corn and soybean plants are solar collectors. The plants store energy from the sun in the form of a kernel of corn or a soybean seed. That energy from the sun then can be made into the food we eat. We mentioned the  chlorophyll that gives the plants a green color, sunlight and photosynthesis. The third graders had already learned a little bit about photosynthesis!

It was fun to relate what they had learned in Biology to the food they were going to have for lunch. We tell the third graders that without farmers they would not have food for lunch. Then I say maybe that would be ok. Think about how much more they could learn by studying instead of eating lunch? Someone will always say "but we need food to live!" I think we got the point across that everyone needs a farmer at least three times a day!