Thursday, August 18th, 2022
Kids scream for ice cream
By Leslie Gartrell
Photo by Paige Sutter/The Daily Standard
Morgan Rauh, 3, Fort Recovery, takes a bite of her homemade ice cream.
CELINA - Kids were able to escape the rain and make a tasty treat all while learning about agriculture at the Mercer County Fair on Wednesday.
Fair staff member Alicia Knapke led children in an ice cream making exercise during "AGtivities with Alicia" under the junior fair tent.
To make ice cream, kids used small plastic bags filled with half-and-half, a little sugar and vanilla extract. Using half-and-half rather than milk would give the ice cream a creamier consistency, Knapke explained.
"Half and half has a higher butterfat content, which helps you make those fattier milk products like ice cream and butter and different things like that," she said.
The young audience members then placed the bag of ice cream ingredients into a larger bag filled with salt and ice.
"We're going to be taking a third cup of salt and we're going to put it into these bags of ice. The salt is actually going to get the ice a lot colder than just having ice itself," she said.
Photo by Paige Sutter/The Daily Standard
Dana Knapke, 9, Coldwater, smiles as she shakes a bag of ice.
Photo by Paige Sutter/The Daily Standard
Wade Knapke, 6, Coldwater, shakes a bag of ice during AGtivities with Alicia at the Mercer County Fair.
Siblings took turns vigorously shaking the bags for 5-7 minutes until their ice cream was sufficiently frozen. Kids squealed as the bags became colder, while some abandoned the project and had their parents take over.
On Tuesday Knapke oversaw an exercise on butter making. She believes "agvocation," the combination of agriculture with advocacy, and using activities such as making butter and ice cream not only gets kids more connected with agriculture, but also their parents.
"Mercer County is one of the largest agricultural counties in the state, but we still have a lot of people who really don't know a lot about agriculture," she said
"We decided to do 'agtivities' to teach kids about different ag products, and that also stems from the generational gap that's coming with agriculture," she continued. "Right now, communities are about four generations removed from agriculture. So we're trying to just reach out and get some of those facts out there."
Rather than solely focusing on educating the youth about agriculture, Knapke said there is also an emphasis on teaching parents and adults about agriculture.
Photo by Paige Sutter/The Daily Standard
Fair staff member Alicia Knapke, left, explains how to make ice cream to a group of kids during an AGtivity event at the Mercer County Fairgrounds on Wednesday morning.
"We have so many people who are here who still have no idea where their food comes from," she said. "So even here, if we can start that conversation and allow for people here to be able to reach out into other areas to be able to share that… that's the biggest thing, to be able to show people that we (producers) are trying to do things the right way."
Knapke said adults and kids alike can get more involved in agriculture by joining programs such as 4-H or connecting with farmers and producers in the community.
"You don't have to be from a farm or from (an) agricultural background to jump in, hands in, be involved in a lot of those things," she said.
"AGtivities with Alicia" continues today at the junior fair tent at 3 p.m., where Knapke will lead an activity called "layers of the soil." Kids will learn about the different layers of soil and how it impacts crops while they make dirt pudding.
