Students at Bell Top Elementary in East Greenbush learn how to make maple syrup.
EAST GREENBUSH (WNYT) – Students in East Greenbush got a sweet lesson in science on Tuesday.
Kids at Bell Top Elementary School learned how to make maple syrup – from tapping trees to collecting sap.
The hands-on project is part of the school’s outdoor education program, where students actually boil the sap down into the syrup in the school’s learning barn. This is a tradition that has been a part of the school for more than two decades.
It teaches the students about the science, the nature, and where our food comes from.
“We start very early in the morning and we boil the sap and we teach the kids lots of science behind this,” said first-grade teacher Melanie Lyte. “We can teach them the three states of matter because the sap is a liquid and then the water vapor is a gas, and when the water freezes it’s a solid. And also if you take out all of the water and you get maple sugar candy you have a solid.”