One-time workshops are a viable tool for exposing school aged students to agricultural knowledge. However, deciding on content level and foci is challenging. We investigated content learning versus prior knowledge of workshop participants. Our 90-minute workshop consisted of four active learning stations focused on poultry hematology, avian disease diagnostics, biosecurity, and careers with poultry. The workshop was held five times throughout 2023 with 45 total participants. Participants and their parents, who provided consent to participate, completed questionnaires before the workshop (T1) and immediately after (T2). Both questionnaires included a 9-question content knowledge quiz. To evaluate learning, we classified each participant’s score change for each question based on whether their responses were correct or incorrect at T1 and if their response remained (already knew), changed to correct (learned) or remained incorrect at T2 (didn’t learn). Overall, participants improved their percentage correct (score) between T1 and T2. We found that participants who already knew the content for specific questions (86% already knew at least 1 question) earned higher T1 scores and had smaller score changes between T1 and T2. Specifically, most participants already knew the content for questions 1, 5 and 7, which were also the most learned questions (P ≤ 0.0233). Participants who learned questions 2, 3, 4 and 9 earned higher T2 scores than those who did not (P ≤ 0.0456). Additionally, the few who learned questions 4 and 8 had greater score increases, almost double those who did not learn those questions (P ≤ 0.0232). Despite most participants having prior knowledge of the topics covered in our workshop, we still observed score improvements suggesting that our workshop effectively built upon their knowledge to teach them new material. These results emphasize the need to tailor content to areas where learning gaps are most evident.