Maple Syrup Making

BACKGROUND

We did gardening with our class. And ate what we produced. We grew a salsa garden!

GOALS

To make maple syrup, so we could sell it and raise money for our class. And just to have fun, and to have a new experience!

PROCESS

The first thing we needed to do was to get the equipment.
The second thing we had to do was drill holes in the trees. (to collect sap) And have tubes from the tap to the bucket.
The third thing we had to do was bring sap up to the school and put it in a 50 gallon drum(when there was any!). To hold it until we were done collecting sap.

The forth thing we had to do was boil the sap into syrup. (we had a parent make a specific boiler. And it was like the one at Whitewater State Park.) The reason we had one made was because it is easier to boil because it doesn’t burn as easy. When we are trying to boil the sap we don’t want it to burn.

PEOPLE

• Michaela Handke (headed project)
• Teresa Smith (headed project)
• Whitewater State Park (helped with ideas on what to do)
• Corey Berg (parent who built boiler)
• Jason Barker (educator/teacher at school)
• Jamie Harper (gave us experience help because he has done the maple syrup making at our school for the past years)
• Secondary I (our class at Riverway Learning Community! They helped with everything)
• Secondary II (helped when we were gone)

RESULTS

The results of our project were fantastic! We had so much fun! Our results were what we expected. We made about 2 to 4 gallons of Maple Syrup! If I could change anything it would be to start earlier, because we didn’t get as much sap because we started later.

DISCUSSION

We learned to live off the land. And how to use the environment to our benefit.