Educational Road Trip Excursions Around Sioux Falls, SD

Many Outstanding Road Trip Excursions offer education and fascination around Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

A visit to Poet Bio-refining, just 20 miles southwest of Sioux Falls proved to be an educational excursion beyond expectation. There we toured the facility and learned how the plant annually utilizes more than 35 million bushels of locally grown and harvested corn to process it into more than 100 million gallons of ethanol. Again stewardship came in to play as we learned how Poet produces the energy used at the plant and how the solid waste fuel boiler burns hundreds of tons of wood chips on a daily basis, to capture and burn methane gas from the Sioux Falls landfill. Dedicated to green energy this cutting edge facility creates a biologically harmonic relationship with Sioux Falls.

Poet is dedicated to reducing dependence on foreign oil through their Growth Energy Program and by promoting the expansion of the use of ethanol in gasoline. We learned so much on their fascinating tour that our brains were nearly aching.

As if we had not learned enough, we also toured the interesting and educational South Dakota State University Dairy Plant and Sales Bar where Cookies and Cream flavored ice cream was founded. Located next to the Alfred Dairy Science Hall this facility processes more than 10,000 pounds of milk in a week.

Cheese, butter, milk, and 60 flavors of ice cream are just a few of the dairy based highlights manufactured and enjoyed there. Both tourists and alumni can enjoy the products from this plant and Dairy Bar where students learn and implement marketing and retail strategies of the SDSU dairy products produced. Employing more than twenty students at a time, this is a sweet excursion for any visiting couple wanting to enjoy educationally sweet South Dakota goodness.