Alexis Delacruz squealed as she held a day-old chicken.

"It's going to fly away!" she said with a laugh as the yellow ball of fuzz stretched its tiny wings.

Delacruz and several other kindergarten classmates at Sugar Hill Elementary School clutched baby chicks as they listened to representatives from Mar-Jac Poultry and the Georgia Poultry Association.

"Mar-Jac will hatch more than half a million chicks today, which is enough to fill this entire parking lot," Len Chappell, a Georgia Poultry customer service worker, said as he handed out chirping chickens.

As a part of Ag Day 2011, local agriculture organizations helped students experience different aspects of life on a farm. Friday marked the fifth year that Hall County extension agents picked a school to visit for a hands-on field day.

"I was raised on a farm, and some kids are surprised to hear that hamburgers and steaks don't come from a grocery store but from a cow," said Tabitha Brinson of the Hall County Cattle Association. "They also don't realize the by-products, such as bandages, shaving cream and toothpaste, that come from cows."

Brinson's 4-year-old son roped a plastic calf, and students tried to follow his lead.

"If they don't learn about agriculture, my son is going to be among the last generation to do anything with it," she said. "We try to do what we can to educate the next generation."

Students were able to touch animals at a petting zoo, watch the cow-milking process, look at large farming equipment and learn about soil conservation.

"Dirt could be a good thing as fertilizer, but it's also a bad thing as pollutant in water," said Josh Crozier of the Chestatee-Chattahoochee RC&D Council.

Using a small replica of a town with a sewage treatment plant, factory and lake, he demonstrated how drainage and dirt drift into a lake.

"Do you want to drink clear water or brown water?" he asked a group of students. "The easiest thing you can do is plant grass, which stops the erosion. You can also plant trees, which I hear you guys are doing on the playground."

For 14-year-old Caleb Jarrard, agriculture runs in the family. He showed students how to clean a horse with sweat scrapers, combs and hoof picks while his mom, Nancy, and younger brother, Ethan, showed their horses as part of the American Quarter Horse Association.

"It's important to teach younger kids about everything that happens on a farm, and they seem to like learning about horses," Jarrard said. "Most people don't know about farms anymore, and these are the places that produce our food and all that we eat."