High school students were able to get a new perspective on agriculture through hands-on sessions Wednesday as part of Science in Ag Day.

“It was interesting because it was stuff we haven’t talked about or touched on in our classes,” said participant Kathy Sonne, a high school junior from Charles City.

Sherry Pogranichniy, coordinator of the event, said there are benefits of having high school students come to Iowa State.

“What we do is invite [high school] science students and teachers to come on campus for a day to experience the science involved in different areas of agriculture,” Pogranichniy said.

More than 160 students and about 30 teachers from across the state came for the day, Pogranichniy said.

“We ask the teachers to nominate the students. They choose students who will be good representatives,” she said. “The students must also be sophomores, juniors and seniors so that they have had some classes in science.”

Pogranichniy said participants could choose three of 21 sessions, which ranged from traditional agricultural topics such as farming to some of the newest scientific advancements in cloning.

“We try to provide hands-on interactive sessions that really expose [the students] to science,” she said. “We invite really every department to offer different sessions, and it is up to individual faculty members to decide what they want to share. A lot of times, it is based on their research or teaching.”

When planning the day, Pogranichniy, recruitment and retention adviser for the agronomy department, said she had certain goals in mind.

“It’s really just trying to expose high school students to agriculture from a perspective in which they already know, which is science,” she said.

The seminars brought new insight to urban dwellers especially, students said.

“So far we went to the session about urban forests and they talked about greenery,” said Seth Fisher, senior at Scavo High School in Des Moines. “After they pointed [urban forests] out, we looked for it around campus. It really is a very awesome ground.”

Another reason for the event is to try to recruit new students to the campus, Pogranichniy said.

“One thing that we’ve noticed is that if you can get the students on campus, something happens to make the students excited,” she said.

The students were treated very much like new college students, Pogranichniy said. They were given a map and some directions on where the sessions were, but it was up to them to find where their session was held.

“My main reason for bringing these students is to expose them to the campus life and to the different areas of sciences,” said Hamed Baig, science teacher at Scavo High School. “The younger generation is the future of everything — for Iowa, the nation and the world.”