Ever wondered how the syrup that you put in pancake is made!? Well on Saturday, March 7 we went over to Groundwork Somerville Growing Center to help out in the Maple Syrup Festival. During the festival Stephen, Andreas and me were in different areas where we had to show people or demonstrated about each station we were in.

In the station i was at, I was demonstrating people, mostly kids, how to drill in to the tree to take the sap out. I also was teaching them how sap locate in the in 4th layer of the tree which is called the Xylem.

I just learned that the same day! I didn’t only get to do that, we were rotating stations. Another thing I got to do was giving people sap never boiled before which is what you make syrup from. Giving people sap was interesting because people didn’t know syrup came out of the tree like that, so watery and little sugary taste. People even said that it taste like coconut water which kinda do. Before we got to the place it was snow all around and it was very cold but that didn’t stop the Greenteam or us from removing it from our way. They were pancakes too but we weren’t on that station it was the Greenteam in charge of that. One thing I learned during this event was how actually sap came from tree and syrup from sap. Way before that I always thought syrup was made with like 10% of water and 90% of dark sugar and that’s how it came out so dark and sweet taste. My highlight of this event was just teaching kids about this, the asking so many questions and you being able to answer them feels great.

   By: Diego Rojas