APPLE FUN — Aiden Smith, A’Marion Jeter and Christopher Craig, all second-graders, try their hand at apple stamp art at this year’s Great Apple Crunch celebration Thursday at McKinley STEM Academy. -- Contributed

STEUBENVILLE — McKinley STEM Academy’s Great Apple Crunch celebration on Thursday was about more than just getting kids to grab a healthy snack when the hunger bug hits.

October is National Farm-to-School Month, and the Great Apple Crunch was designed to encourage kids to recognize and promote healthy eating, local food initiatives, farm-to-school programs, agricultural careers and to celebrate farmers across the nation.

Younger kids tackled a “sink or float” activity, comparing vegetables to predict which would sink — and, of course, which wouldn’t — while the “upper classmen” launched apple rockets and concocted an experiment that demonstrated an exploding apple.

And everybody got to try their hand at apple sack racing and apple stamp art. They also grazed at an apple nacho bar featuring sliced apples and several toppings and everyone got an apple to munch on and had the chance to enjoy the antics of a staff member dressed in a “Fruit of the Loom” apple costume in celebration of the event

“This was probably our fourth year participating in this initiative,” McKinley’s Heather Hoover said. Hoover is McKinley’s school food authority facilitator and gifted intervention specialist and Project Lead the Way lead launch educator. She also serves as the 4-H adviser to Steubenville City Seedlings.

“Each year we try to do something different: Last year, we had classroom apple bake-offs where parents submitted simple apple recipes that could be made in the classroom, then the kids voted on them … and selected which apple recipe they wanted to bake in their classroom with their teacher. Then we did a taste testing (and) gave away a ‘Golden Spatula,'” she said. “We register through the Great Lakes Apple Crunch event, and they always send us cute ideas on how to celebrate promoting local apple orchards. They sent us a map of all the apple orchards that you can find throughout Ohio as well as neighboring states, and we try to incorporate those lessons to students leading up to the big crunch.”

And what kid isn’t going to get excited at the prospect of launching rockets or exploding apples?

“They were excited,” Hoover admits, explaining the rockets were crafted from straws with a bit of clay formed into the shape of an apple on top with fins they cut out themselves. They put the creation on a plunger system for launch.

“They were able to set the angle for how they wanted to (send it up) and then pulled the plunger up, that determined the force behind the rocket,” she said. “They really enjoyed it — it was exciting for them to determine the force behind each rocket and the angle — they each (decided) whether they were going to shoot theirs straight up or at a 45- or 65-degree angle.”

The idea was to get the kids to visualize where the rockets would land, she said. “A few of the students — the ones who shot theirs straight up — found out it could come down anywhere, but the ones who chose a different angle were able to make a prediction” where it would end up.

The exploding apple project was just as fun.

“We did a little twist,” Hoover admits. “Most people, most activities, just tell you to carve out the center of an apple, and then, of course, you mix the baking soda and add the vinegar … and you kind of just watch it bubble over.

“But what we did was each student got a plastic Ziploc bag and then they wrapped their baking soda into a paper towel,” she said. “We put the package of baking soda into a sandwich bag that had an apple drawn on it and they decided if they wanted theirs to be a green apple or a red apple, then we mixed food coloring in with their vinegar solution. You seal it really quick and give it a couple shakes, then we put it into a bin. The sandwich bag would begin to swell and then it would bust open and make like a popping sound.”

What the kids didn’t know then — but most certainly do now — is how tightly they folded that paper towel packet of baking soda “determined the explosion their apple would create” once the vinegar was added to the bag.

“The students realized by the end, ‘Wow, if I just kind of took my baking soda in my paper towel and just crumbled it up loosely and put it in there, I really didn’t get the explosion’ compared to someone who folded their baking soda in the paper towel and made like a little square pouch,” she said. “Students who folded their paper towel (tightly) had a greater explosion than the other kids who put it in there loosely.”

Hoover said there was method to their madness.

“With our rocket launches they were able to apply some math skills based on angles and they were able to determine the force to launch their rocket, and they applied science skills based on combining solutions to get a chemical reaction with exploding apples,” she said. “So, there was some science involved, some good math — and then the rest of it was just fun.”