Education at the Fair

The Ephrata Fair isn’t just about the food and rides. Teachers have been using it as a great educational resource for years!

Wednesday saw students from the TV Studio class at tent city at 7 AM practicing the use of their cameras and microphones in an effort to hone their reporting skills. Several members of the class commented that the cows were giving more interesting responses than most of the students they interview.

During first period students from Mr. Shortuse’s environmental science classes took off on a walking tour of the fair in order to learn how the fair may impact the environment. As part of that endeavor, they placed signs near culverts and storm water grates reminding everyone not to dump pollutants since whatever goes into the sewer will make it to our water supply.

During most of the morning and again in the afternoon, members of the Cloister FFA gave presentations to throngs of elementary students. The high school students had set up stations that featured horses, cows, sheep, pigs, and forage.

Finally, members of Mrs. Eshleman’s Advanced Composition classes used the fair to inspire their writing. Their assignment states:

Your assignment is to write a descriptive paragraph from the perspective of an inanimate object encountered at the Ephrata Fair. The point of view of the paragraph should be that of the object you have chosen. Nowhere in your paragraph should you mention the name of your object or even hint at the name. The identity of your object should be revealed by the sensory details you use to describe it. Your use of imagery, sensory details, and personification is the key to a successful descriptive paragraph.

So when you go to the fair, see what you can learn while eating your toasted cheeseburger and fried Oreo!