TIFTON — Third grade students from four area schools came to University of Georgia’s Tifton campus to learn about agriculture and the environment in a hands on way.

Students from Annie Belle Clark, Northside, Len Lastinger and Cook County schools were able to visit 18 different stations to learn about planting, pollination and other seasonal topics at the spring session.

Katie Wilson, one of the organizers, said that there were 820 students on the campus.

Students were able to learn about and see peanuts and cotton being planted, discover how seeds become plants and how plants eat, and about monarch butterflies as pollinators.

There was also a mock farmers market, where the students engaged in role play to help them understand supply and demand.

They were also able to learn about different kinds of turf grass, for which Tifton is famous, and got to play some soccer and hit a golf ball on two different kinds of grass to see the difference.

Advances in technology were also on display at the event.

Drones and their uses in agriculture was a popular station, as was the future farmstead, which showed the students energy saving and reducing building methods and materials.

Aquaponics showed them a different way of growing crops, and the students were able to put their knowledge to the test during Ag/Enviro Jeopardy.

The students will return in the fall as fourth graders to learn about harvesting the crops they saw and helped plant in the spring.