Students Begin Their Seasonal Sap Collection

Sap Season is Here!
Posted on 02/09/2022
We may be into the full winter season, but our students in Narragansett's Agriculture Science CTE program are already thinking about Spring and how to prepare a very important year-round favorite!

Each year in early February, our Narragansett FFA students trek out with their signature blue buckets and begin the process of placing them on maple trees in surrounding areas, which is the tapping process.  It's not unlikely to pass dozens of these on the familiar roads around our schools that residents travel on every day and serves as a sign of Spring.

In the first couple weeks of March, students will begin collecting these buckets full of the sap that has been gathered, sometimes bringing back more than 100 gallons a day!  The class then prepares the sap for production such as testing the sugar content using a hydrometer.  They then continue to boil the liquid down and learn about the entire process and how to safely complete it for consumption.  

In Late March, students then enjoy the fruits of their labor with the first bottle of maple syrup shared in class.  They hand-bottle and label the rest of the syrup, which will be available for purchase in the Spring to support the program. These bottles are sold at the school, at school-based events, at the Rhode Island Home Show when the students have the opportunity to attend, and shared with staff as a thank you for their support.  This also coincides with Fresh Egg Fridays, which offers farm-fresh eggs from our own Hen House, which is cared for by our students.  

Our CTE students are fully immersed in their fields, and Agriculture Science is the perfect example of how we engage students and help them lead areas that they are most passionate about.