Then we went to go see it in action.\u00a0 We almost got lost, but Mom followed the trail of cotton down the side of the road, and sure enough it lead to the right place.\u00a0 *S*<\/p>\n
The guide was great.\u00a0 A little above most of the smaller kids who were there, but I think the parents had more questions then the kids did anyway!\u00a0 He talked about how the plant grows, and the machine they use to pick it now, and then showed (from a window above the gin) how the machine worked.\u00a0 There have been vast improvements to the technology since Whitney’s day.<\/p>\n
Back then, the slaves had to pick the stuff, and the gin was pretty much a bunch of wire teeth that ran through the cotton picking out the seeds.\u00a0 Today, there is a machine that picks the cotton, and loads it into a module.\u00a0 The trucks pick up the modules, and bring them to the gin.\u00a0 the cotton is then run through a vacuum of sorts, which fluffs the cotton enough to separate the bits of trash from the cotton.\u00a0 Then it runs through a dryer, and into the gin itself.\u00a0 After the gin, it gets cleaned, and there is a camera taking pictures every 15 seconds that allow the operators to determine if the cotton needs to be cleaned again.\u00a0 The less cleaning the better.\u00a0 Farmers get paid by the pound, and cleaning strips weight.\u00a0 Then it goes over to the press where it is smashed down into a bale.\u00a0 The machine spins and starts to load another bale, and the workers have 2 minutes to get wires around the first bale and get it out of the machine (not as easy as it sounds!).\u00a0 Each bale is given a number, and samples are taken to send to the government.<\/p>\n
Awesome fun fact – Everything that comes out of the Gin is used.\u00a0 The cotton, obviously, sold to make cottony things with.\u00a0 The seeds, sold to plant more, or to make cotton seed oil.\u00a0 The garbage cotton, stuff that is too short to be of any use to most manufacturers, goes to fill furniture and make q-tips, that kind of thing.\u00a0 Even the trash is used, as compost for future crops, or as feed for the local farmers cows.\u00a0 Its really pretty awesome when you think about it.<\/p>\n
Oh, and!!\u00a0 Another awesome fun fact – Did you know that they can trace your shirt back to the farmer who grew it?\u00a0 The US Government apparently has strict quality controls over the cotton.\u00a0 The bale numbers are used to track it no matter where it goes.\u00a0 Using that number, which is placed on the tag of the shirt somehow, your shirt can be traced back the gin that ginned it.\u00a0 The gin can tell you which farmer grew it.\u00a0 That way, there can be no hanky panky, and messing with the product, because they will find you.\u00a0 Pretty awesome huh?<\/p>\n
Anyway, the kids had a blast.\u00a0 They got to take home a few seeds, and a handful of “dirty cotton” (seeds and all) and a handful of “clean cotton.”\u00a0 They loved getting to touch and feel and everything.\u00a0 Both GeekBoy and PinkDiva said that getting to take some seeds was their favorite part.\u00a0 LilChicano gave me this quote,<\/p>\n
“The cotton gin always get me freakin’ out!”<\/p>\n
Too cute.\u00a0 Here are some pictures from our trip.\u00a0 Ignore the big white spots.\u00a0 Apparently that’s what happens when you give a 6 year old a camera, and forget to clean the lens when he’s done.\u00a0 *S* \u00a0 (He helped me shoot the wedding.\u00a0 I’m working my way through the photos and will be posting his on my other blog<\/a> soon.)<\/p>\n Enjoy!<\/p>\n Thursday (and I’m just now getting around to blogging this…\u00a0 how sad is that?) we went on a field trip with members of our local co-op to a Cotton Gin.\u00a0 …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,2,4,30,12,15,17,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-capt740","category-classes","category-fieldtrips","category-ltvv111","category-photos","category-history","category-students","category-thepinkdiva"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/yuriar.com\/aprendemosacademy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/yuriar.com\/aprendemosacademy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/yuriar.com\/aprendemosacademy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yuriar.com\/aprendemosacademy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yuriar.com\/aprendemosacademy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/yuriar.com\/aprendemosacademy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/yuriar.com\/aprendemosacademy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yuriar.com\/aprendemosacademy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yuriar.com\/aprendemosacademy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"071018_cg-windowview.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/yuriar.com\/aprendemosacademy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/071018_cg-windowview.jpg\")
\nView from the window above the gin.\u00a0 Great flash, I know.\u00a0 *S<\/p>\n![\"071018_cottongin.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/yuriar.com\/aprendemosacademy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/071018_cottongin.jpg\")
\nThe cotton, being sucked into the dryer while the trash is blown outside.<\/p>\n![\"071018_cg-seedshed.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/yuriar.com\/aprendemosacademy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/071018_cg-seedshed.jpg\")
\nThe seed shed.<\/p>\n![\"071018_cg-modules.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/yuriar.com\/aprendemosacademy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/071018_cg-modules.jpg\")
\nModules all in a row.<\/p>\n![\"071018_cg-writeup.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/yuriar.com\/aprendemosacademy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/071018_cg-writeup.jpg\")
\nGeekBoy’s write up afterward.\u00a0 See!\u00a0 We glued the seeds and taped some cotton samples to the Gin diagram!\u00a0 How awesome is that?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"