Plunging a shovel into loosened dirt, pulling back on the handle and watching a large redish-brown sweet potato pop out of the ground elated 8-year-old Franky Perez. The Sardis Elementary School second-grader grinned from ear-to-ear as he triumphantly picked up his vegetable and took it to a small scale to weigh. “I always wanted to be a scientist at plants because I always dreamed about it,” he said.