MARSHFIELD, WI (WSAU) — Students looking to get hands-on experience in agriculture work now have a new lab to help their studies.
Mid-State Technical College Marshfield campus now has a new lab in its main corridor. The lab is the result of a two-month renovation process this summer to help agricultural students feel more connected to campus. The lab also opens on the 100th year of Mid-State having a college campus in Marshfield.
Dean of the Marshfield campus and agricultural programs at Mid-State Dr. Alex Lendved describes the renovations of the brand new lab. “We completely gutted and renovated the space to include new tile flooring and the latest and greatest technology. We have our life-sized cow simulator, countertops, everything. Everything in there that’s the latest and greatest for our agriculture students.”
The lab will now allow agricultural students to work on long-term experiments that can remain in the classroom. Labs that include things like food dehydration, growing plants, soil testing, and plant identification can now all be performed in the renovated lab. Lendved says the location also serves as a hub for the agriculture programs who beforehand didn’t have a space to call their own.
“We had more students on campus [for the Agribusiness and Science Technology associate degree program]. We purchased a cow simulator. So this cow simulator is a life-sized cow. So we really needed a dedicated lab space to both provide adequate space for our students in those two-degree programs as well as provide lab space for this life-sized cow simulator.”
The new lab opens to agricultural students on Monday, September 14th. Agricultural students begin classes a week later than the rest of the campus due to a large number of students in the ag programs that work as traditional agricultural producers in the summer.