TORRINGTON, Wyo. – North Platte Valley, South Goshen, and Lingle-Ft. Laramie Conservation Districts recently hosted an AG Expo for 200 fourth-graders in April.
Students from Trail, LaGrange, Southeast, Guernsey, and Lingle/Ft. Laramie schools learned about rural life. Many of the students, who had never experienced farm and ranching or responsibility for animal care, were presented with hands on opportunities that opened a different world of learning.
The event started with a tour by Ben Milner-Wyoming Game and Fish- Downer Bird Farm to learn how humans commercially collect, hatch, raise and release pheasants back into the wild.

Ag Expo continued indoors at the Goshen County Fairground Pavilion. The students moved through booths every fifteen minutes, experiencing agriculture with demonstrations including sheep shearing, wool spinning, calf pulling, tractors and implements, bugs and grasshoppers, furs and fish, soil, parasites, veterinary care, prairie dogs and native grasses, bees and pollination, sheep and goats, egg embryo’s, and energy do’s and don’ts by the Wyrulec energy trailer.
Students also enjoyed a mock auction for animals and farm equipment and witnessed a special dog named Frey
herding cattle.
The event ended with a wool dying and wet felting classroom project with wool donated by Brown Sheep Company. Students rolled, stamped, squeezed, pulled, and pinched pieces of colored wool in plastic bags with soap to get colorful squares, which they combined into a wall hanging bearing all
their names.