For years now, OARDC has made science more exciting for Ohio K-12 students by offering different hands-on educational programs on its Wooster campus. In fact, one such program alone, The Science of Agriculture, attracted 924 kids in 2006 — 446 more than in the previous year.

Despite the encouraging numbers, many schools haven’t been able to take advantage of OARDC’s educational activities because of budget cuts. So OARDC researchers found another way to bring science to life for these kids.

“In the past year or so, more and more teachers and schools who have made a yearly trip to OARDC for one of our special events or just for a class tour or field trip have had to cancel their visits because of funding constrictions,” said Jane Houin, OARDC administrative public relations liaison. “That got us to thinking, with more and more schools under the gun financially, how can we continue to meet their needs and get these students excited about the opportunities in agbiosciences?”

So if kids couldn’t come to OARDC for science, OARDC would take science to them.

That’s how OARDC on the Road, a pilot program to do just that, got started in the winter of 2005-06. Schools with limited field-trip opportunities were encouraged to submit applications to have OARDC bring a hands-on science learning experience to their classrooms.

In its first year, the program reached more than 800 elementary and junior-high students from different types of schools — from urban schools in Mansfield (with 100-plus students per grade) to schools like Winesburg Elementary (with only 15 students in its entire sixth grade) — who learned about the science of pollination, soybeans, coyotes, and watersheds.

One of those students was Chaz Hairston, a seventh grader from Mansfield’s John Simpson Middle School. He participated in one of the most popular activities of the pilot program — learning about watersheds. With his classmates, Hairston constructed a watershed from simple household materials; painted on neighborhoods, roads, and fields; added “pollutants;” and evaluated what happened when a rain episode washed everything down.

“It was fun! I liked it that we got to build our own watershed and learn about it in the process,” Hairston said. The workshop “taught me a lot about agriculture and our natural resources. I learned that things like fertilizers and car oil can affect the water, and also learned what we can do to help the county and the land.”

Teachers also appreciate the benefits this outreach effort provides by enhancing their pupils’ science curricula.

“Schools are short on money for anything extra like expert speakers on topics we study,” said Bonnie Putman, science teacher at John Simpson Middle School. “So we depend on organizations like OARDC for free speakers who will come and engage our science students in activities that bring understanding to topics we study throughout the year. In the future, we would like to schedule return visits to our school.”

The program was so successful, OARDC will visit 24 schools during the 2006-07 school year. In the meantime, Houin said, more and more applications keep coming from teachers and administrators. Science is in hot demand. And OARDC is ready to supply a good dose of it.