MONTE VISTA – The Ag Fest was held Feb. 11-13 at the Ski-Hi Complex in Monte Vista. The educational event for young learners has become staple following right on the heels of the Southern Rocky Mountain Agriculture Conference and Trade Show. 

“We definitely want to teach kids where our everyday life things come from,” said 4-H Youth Development Specialist Cody Groff. “We want to give them a little more understanding that it’s not just as easy as going to the grocery store and getting what you need. Someone had to do the hard work in order to get it over to the grocery store. We are hoping to bring them closer to understanding how important agriculture is, and just how many different areas of agriculture that there are.”  

Children from different schools all over the San Luis Valley attended the festival. The Ag Fest was set up with many different stations inside the Ski-Hi Complex. Children in groups moved from station to station. 

One station was set up with live baby chicks, and model eggs, where students were taught where eggs came from, how baby chickens grew and hatched from the eggs, and the students were also allowed to hold the baby chicks. 

Beth Hayes, a Pueblo Agricultural Research Specialist, was at the baby chick station teaching the kids. 

“We come from Pueblo every year. At this station, kids learn all about embryology,” she said. “Kids learn what a fertilized egg is, how it becomes a baby chicken. We also teach them what a hen and a rooster are. These model eggs come apart, and we show them what is inside of an egg for 21 days, then at the end they get to come and see a live baby chick and hold and pet the baby chick. The kids always have a lot of fun with it. They learn about proper handling, and even the body parts and anatomy of the baby chick too. The kids love it, seems to be their favorite station too, because it’s the only one with live animals.”  

Across from Hayes was a station set up with a model of a cow, and the different parts of a cow. CSU San Luis Valley Area Extension Director Larry Brown was teaching the kids at this station and asking the children questions. 

“Do you know what can be used from cows? We get more than meat from the cows,” asked Brown. 

Brown showed the children a chart of all the meat from a cow and asked the children what else could be used from a cow. Some children talked about leather and hide, and Brown showed the children a leather football that had been made from a cow. The children looked interested and were receptive to everything that Brown was saying.  

Another station was set up for the children, a watershed model, set up by the Rio Grande Watershed Conservation and Education Initiative (RGWCEI) Interim Director and Program Coordinator Hannah Thill. 

“We teach the children about the start of rivers, about water supply and how we get that to our houses and farms. It’s great to see how the children discover these things and to see the kid’s reaction to everything,” Thill said. 

Another station was set up to show how bees pollinate flowers. Children were taught what parts of the flowers are pollinated, and they were also taught about the pollination process.  

One of the final stations was being taught by CSU SLV Area Extension’s Janae Naranjo. She showed the students how pizza was made, from garden to table. She spoke to the children about where cheese comes from, about all the different parts of the pizza including the sauce, the crust and toppings, and where all of it comes from. 

Overall, all the kids looked extremely excited while moving from one station to the next. Travis McCarroll, of Sanford School District, was excited to be at the baby chick station and said, “It’s fun to learn about the baby chickens.”  

4-H Youth Specialist Goff said their overall goal was to teach the children the importance of agriculture. 

“These kids are our future leaders; they are our future citizens. It’s very important that all of us to collectively understand the importance of that, and the reason why ag is necessary and how we need to understand where the things that we interact with everyday come from, and in turn that makes us a little more gratuitous to everything that we have as well,” Goff said. 

For more information on the Ag Fest, contact the CSU SLV Area Extension Office at 719-852-7381.