The baby chicks and ducklings in the Ohio Poultry Association tent at the Waterman Agricultural and Natural Resources Laboratory were a popular item during the third annual Scarlet and Gray Ag Day.       Photos by Nathan Robinson

First taste of farm life

Scarlet and Gray Ag Day generates appetite for agriculture and science for hundreds of fifth-graders

Science and agriculture became bigger than life as more than 600 fifth-graders arrived on the Ohio State campus April 27 for Scarlet and Gray Ag Day.

Educational hands-on sessions held at the Waterman Agricultural and Natural Resources Laboratory and the agricultural campus area exposed students to the world of agriculture and natural resources through workshops in farm safety, livestock production, entomology and many other topics.

As they petted calves, milked cows and learned about llamas at the tents set up at the Waterman lab, many fifth-graders were getting their first taste of farm life.

Kylie Watts, a student at Evening Street Elementary in Worthington, had never been on a farm before Ag Day.

"I was kind of surprised at first -- the smell was weird," Watts said. "But I think it was cool to see the animals."

She especially enjoyed the llamas brought in by Jack and Donna Moore of Somerset. "They were really cute and very soft," she added.

Moments earlier, gazes were fixed on the two llamas peering out under the tent as Jack Moore outlined the attributes of a llama. They are more used as "beast of burden" or work animals than any other animal in the world, he said, and are especially suited as sheep herders, with the ability to jump eight feet from a standing position. They are also used for wool and meat in South America, he said.

Children participated in seven different 25-minute sessions held throughout the day, with a break for lunch. They learned how rope and sausage are made, observed chicken egg incubation and embryonic development, and participated in science experiments.

But the Ag Day experience was much deeper than having fun with animals and experiments, said Heather Vaubel, co-chair of the event and a student member of the Ohio State Agricultural Education Society, which organized the event. She said the object of Ag Day is to educate the consumers of tomorrow.

"I want these students to know why agriculture is important and how it affects their everyday lives," Vaubel said.

The fifth-graders were asked to expand on that theme for an essay contest held prior to Ag Day, with the winners being announced during the lunch break at Waterman.

David Stacklin, a graduating senior in agriculture education and volunteer in the Ohio Poultry Association tent at Waterman, talked about invoking a positive image of agriculture for society's future leaders. He said only 2 percent of the population is directly involved in agriculture, with 23 percent indirectly involved through careers in media, communications, teaching and the business side of farming.

"That means 75 percent of the people are never involved in agriculture. They have no direct or even indirect contact, except at the grocery store," Stacklin said. "This percentage of the population controls the lawmaking process, so if we can help inform them, then it will be to the advantage of the agriculture industry."

A fifth grade student gets a hand milking a cow during Ag Day.

Eric Freece, science and reading teacher at Worthington Hills Elementary School, said the Ag Day activities enhance his teaching.

"We can talk about things in the classroom, but being able to experience firsthand is a much better way of learning," he said. For example, the biology concepts he had covered in class became crystal clear as his students observed the bacteria present inside the cannulated cow at Waterman, he said.

As he watched and answered questions as his students cuddled tiny baby chicks and ducklings and examined an assortment of eggs in the poultry tent, he remarked that most of his students had never touched a chicken or a duck before.

"To never experience agriculture is leaving out a large experience that is part of Ohio's history," he said, adding that his school is located on what used to be farmland.

An annual event, Ag Day is just one of the many opportunities available for youths to visit Ohio State and learn about agriculture. Columbus area students from Brentnell Montessori, Court Elementary, the Columbus City School ECLIPSE program and Worthington Schools participated this year, and the experience left a favorable impression on many of them.

Colonial Hills Elementary student Jackie Miller said the visit exceeded her expectations.

"I was expecting to just go and look at the animals, but we got to learn about bacteria and pet the calves," she said.

She also said it helped trigger an interest in a career in agriculture, because she likes animals. Already at home are a ferret, 10 hamsters and a bird, with a dog soon to be joining the herd.

Smith lecturer praises polymers

Alan J. Heeger, winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, looks a little like a thin Santa Claus. The similarity isn't just the wispy white beard or cheerful demeanor -- it's the twinkle in his eyes when he shows you what his electronic polymers can do.

Heeger, a professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, was the guest of the Department of Physics and the Graduate School for their Annual Smith Lecture. On May 2, he enthralled his audience of nearly 450 with tales of the "fourth generation" of polymers. Heeger started with the basics for his audience by answering the question: What are polymers?

They are plastics -- long chains of repeating molecules. They are strong and flexible, and can be made transparent. What makes them so strong? A carbon-to-carbon molecular bond. You know carbon. It's the "C" on the Periodic Table of the Elements. It is also the stuff in diamonds.

The long chains of molecules bond strongly to each other, but interact weakly with other chains. Aligning these chains allows for their amazing strength and makes some plastics nearly impermeable: Bulletproof vests are actually plastic, as are snow skis.

Three previous Nobel prizes have been awarded since 1953 for work done in plastics. The first plastics were insulators. Plastic is wrapped around conducting copper wires to protect those wires from the elements. But research in the late 1970s and early 80s heralded new discoveries in polymer research. By altering the carbon bond structure, the plastic became a semi-conductor. Now, instead of protecting a copper wire, the polymer structure would behave like the copper wire.

What does that mean? We already have material that conducts -- copper wires work quite well to transmit electricity. But polymers offer some unique advantages. The processing of polymers is much less expensive than processing metals. They weigh less and can be made stronger.

"There is still lots of work to do," Heeger said. "But there is the potential of developing polymers with the conducting property of copper and the strength of steel."

First uses of the new plastics include light-emitting diodes, photo diodes, solar cells, circuits and even lasers.

Heeger and his collaborators created a device that included a thin film of semi-conducting plastic on glass. How thin is thin? Heeger showed a diagram of the device, with the film layer labeled "1,000 angstroms." An angstrom is about the size of an atom. A layer 1,000 angstroms thick is about 500 times smaller than a human hair.

The device can carry information by breaking the light into pixels through a series of columns and rows often called "passive addressing." Colors of the light can be manipulated by changing the molecular structure. By creating information sources on the film, industrial applications are enormous. Already, cellular telephone displays are being made. The thin, flexible substrate used for these holds many advantages over traditional cellular phone displays: It's light and thin, and doesn't break easily.

Already, applications of the polymers are spawning new businesses. Uniax, a company founded by Heeger in 1990 and bought by Dupont in March 2000, created a beautiful replica of the Nobel medal -- in a thin film of glowing plastic. "It runs on a battery," said Heeger, showing it to his audience, "and will last about 20 hours."

The future of these substances is limited only by human imagination. Already, Heeger is working on colored liquid plastics that promise a revolution in the printing and circuitry worlds.

"Let's just call these colored liquids something we all know," he said. "Ink. With a polymer ink that conducts, we can begin to print circuits."

Heeger also introduced his audience to more applications: Not only can these polymers emit light, they can detect it. Heeger showed a slightly grainy digital color image of a rose, scanned by a polymer photodiode.

"We are looking at a broad paradigm shift," he said. "This new class of materials will be heavily used all over society. The semi-conducting property as well as processing and mechanical advantages will revolutionize many industries."

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