Organizations volunteer to grow agricultural awareness in hundreds of youngsters

By Stuart Hedstrom 
Staff Writer

    DOVER-FOXCROFT — Recently the Valley Grange, Piscataquis County Soil and Water Conservation District and Piscataquis County University of Maine Cooperative Extension office collaborated to bring agriculture into about 50 elementary classrooms through the annual GrowME program. Apple tasting, creating animal graphs, seed planting and butter making were among some of the agriculturally-themed activities brought to hundreds of grade K-3 students in schools in four districts from March 24-28 through GrowMe.

Observer photo/Stuart Hedstrom

    HAVING AN APPLE FOR THE DAY — First-graders in Heather Madore’s class at SeDoMoCha Elementary in Dover-Foxcroft sample apples from Rollins Orchard in Garland as part of a GrowME presentation on March 27. The Valley Grange, PCSWCD and Piscataquis branch of UMaine Cooperative Extension have partnered to bring agriculture into K-3 classrooms in four area school districts through fun activities and the work of program volunteers.

    On the morning of March 27, first-graders in Heather Madore’s classroom at the SeDoMoCha Elementary School learned about growing apples with GrowME volunteer Ernest Rollins of Rollins Orchard in Garland.
    Rollins explained that even in winter the trees in the orchard need to be maintained in order to get ready for the harvest later in the year. He asked the first-graders, who gathered in a circle on the room rug, what they would see on an apple tree branch before the fruit, and the students were able to correctly identify the blossoms and leaves.
    “The leaves take water and sunlight and use that to make sugar,” Rollins said, saying about 100 leaves are needed for one apple. The students then were able to say that bees help grow apples, through pollination, as Rollins showed them some pictures of the apple-growing process.
    Rollins brought in four different types of apples for the first-graders to try if they wanted to, which Madore cut into slices to go onto a plate. Before the snack time, Rollins had the students pass around a pair of McIntosh apples. He explained each piece of fruit was mostly red but also had bits of green on the skin. “It depends on how much sun each apple gets,” Rollins said.

Observer photo/Stuart Hedstrom

    COMPARING APPLES TO APPLES — Four varieties of apples were cut into slices for Heather Madore’s first-grade class to try as part of a GrowME presentation on March 27 at the SeDoMoCha School. The youngsters decided the golden delicious was their favorite of the four brought in by presenter Ernest Rollins of Rollins Orchard.

    After the students tried a slice of a McIntosh, nearly all said the segments tasted sweet. He then asked the first-graders what a middling apple felt like, and the responses included “smooth”, “hard” and “like plastic” before the pupils said the taste was sweet to some and sour to others.
    “They are sort of waxy,” Rollins said. “They produce their own natural wax which keeps them fresher so they don’t spoil.”
    An empire is a cross between a McIntosh and red delicious apple, the students learned. Rollins said when the skin is peeled browning occurs from the reaction to oxygen. With the empire the taste description also included both sweet and sour responses, as Rollins said varieties of apples can have varying tastes to different people.
    The final GrowME apple to sample was the golden delicious, and the tastes included both sweet and tart. Rollins asked the students to vote on which type of apple they liked best and the golden delicious ended up as the overwhelming favorite.