Suffolk public school students have been learning about life on the land and environmental issues during an annual field trip to the Virginia Tech research farm in the city’s southwest.

Farm Day, running over Wednesday and Thursday, gives all 1,200 SPS second graders a chance to get some dirt beneath their nails.

“I think this is 10 or 11 years we’ve been doing it,” said Tara Williams, local manager for the Peanut Soil and Water Conservation District.

Besides hers and the university research farm, various organizations teamed up to produce the field trip, Williams said. She listed the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resource Conservation Service and Farm Service Agency, Virginia Department of Forestry and Colonial Farm Credit.

Representatives helped deliver 16 lessons. They were set up around the field, and classes rotated from station to station.

Subjects included soil structure, precipitation and soybean germination.

Students were able to pick cotton and meet “Hiti” the Icelandic pony. Each class had its picture taken with a John Deere tractor.

“We do it so the kids have an opportunity to learn about agriculture and natural resources,” Williams said.

Julie Moyer, a Suffolk Public Schools science instructional specialist, said the “real-world experience” reinforced the Standards of Learning.

“They will get the exposure now, and later on in the year they will learn it in the classroom,” she said.

“It makes it stick more in their brain. They are going to remember it so much easier than just learning it in the classroom.”

Another important benefit was the sheer enjoyment students experienced.

Moyer said when she gets on a bus after it arrives, and says, “Welcome to Farm Day! They’re like, ‘Yeah, we’re here!’”

“When I tell them there’s cotton to pick over here in this field, they’re like, ‘Oh, I get to pick cotton?’”

Eboni Jennings, a teacher at Northern Shores Elementary School, said her students were excited to learn about recycling, and enjoyed the cookie-based edible project on soil structure.

Jennings was expecting a payoff in the classroom. “Putting it with the real-life experience helps them,” she said.

David Langston, director of the Tidewater Agricultural Research and Extension Center, stressed the importance of teaching children where food comes from and what it takes to produce it.

“It’s not just putting a seed in the ground and watching things grow,” Langston said. “There’s a whole lot that you have to take into consideration.

“I think it gives them a much bigger picture of agriculture than they would get if they hadn’t been exposed to it.”