Middle School Class Takes Field Trip to Wallace State’s Agricultural Department

 
HANCEVILLE, Ala. — Mr. Gavin Moy’s College Ready Life Science Class of Boaz Middle School took a trip to the Agricultural Department at Wallace State Community College on Tuesday, May 9.
 
His Life Science class has been learning about the study of ecology and agriculture so they came to Wallace State Community College to get some hands-on experience.
 
Agriculture/Horticulture instructor Anthony Hilliard first gave the students a tour around the Agricultural Department where the students were able to see the various types of produce and flowers that the department grows each year. After the tour of the greenhouses and land the students split into three groups.
 
The three groups each focused on a different hands-on learning activity, such as plant propagation, composting plants and landscape maintenance.
 
Plant propagation is the process of creating new plants from a variety of sources: seeds, cuttings, bulbs and other plant parts. This group was led by Wallace State’s
Jason Bynum and focused on plant grafting, which is the process of fusing two plants together.
 
The second group was led by Wallace State graduate Josh Murphree, and they focused on the process of thermal composting also known as hot composting. With this composting technique you pile all of your compost into a heap and rotate it from top to bottom and then from bottom to top until it is all broken down.
 
Anthony Hilliard and Russell Culpeper led the third group in landscape maintenance, where students got to learn about hedge trimming and sod cutting. They also had the opportunity to roll the sod up and lay it back down.
 
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Wallace State Agricultural instructor Anthony Hilliard gave the Boaz Middle School students a tour of the Agricultural Department’s land and talked to them about everything they do at Wallace State before dividing the students into groups.
 

Boaz Middle School students try their hand at plant grafting at Wallace State’s Agricultural Department.
 
 

Wallace State graduate Josh Murphree instructed students on the thermal composting process of re-layering and watering the compost pile while the students grabbed pitch forks and watering hoses to test their own skills.
 
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Kristen Holmes
Director, WSCC Communications & Marketing,
and Administrator, The Evelyn Burrow Museum
Wallace State Community College
801 Main Street NW, Hanceville AL 35077
256.352.8118 office
256.339.2519 cell
kristen.holmes@wallacestate.edu