Grow House-Connecting the Youth and Community to Agriculture

Grow House

One of my colleagues shared the Grow House with me at a PAAE (Pennsylvania Association for Agriculture Educators) meeting. As soon as he showed this to me my wheels started spinning in my mind. How can I make this permanent? Can I connect this to the community? What about agriculture literacy? 

This project grew into a Community-Based Service Learning project that I carried out at my coorperating center. I taught my plant science students a fifteen day unit based on plants and gardening. I had a guest speaker from PSU Pesticide Education come in to inform the students about IPM (Integrated Pest Management) and I brought in two Master Gardeners to tell the students how to test the soil, when to plant and how to prep the soil for gardening. 

The students then created four workshops that they taught to 64 third graders. There workshop topics where: How to Grow a Plant, Parts of a Plant, Farm Safety and Farm to Food. These agriulture literacy workshops was all student driven. They did everything! I just gathered the supplies and arranged the time with the 3rd grade teachers. 

After the workshops students stayed after school with the Master Gardeners to assemble the Grow House on the elementary school playground and prepare the soil for planting. 

Shortly, we will plant the vegetables in the Grow House garden. The agriculture education students volunteered to pull weeds, water and harvest the vegetables over the summer. All the vegetables grown in the garden will be donated to the local food bank. 

This was a really great project to do. After the assembly of the Grow House, the next day the students came in and wanted to expand it! The response I received from this learning project was overwhelming in a good way. 

Engaging Our Community

Think about the agriculture department you were a part of in high school. Think about the agriculture department your child is involved in now? Are there differences? Odds are you are shaking your head yes right now. Why you ask? Because each agricultural education department is based on the needs of the community. Every district is different with a completely different set of wants. Why is this important? Oh, great question! This is important because as an agricultural educator I think it is my job to fuse the students with the community. I like to involve my community in what my students are learning.

Recently, I gathered with my colleagues to share some Community-Based Service Learning Project ideas.  I thought these ideas where just a terrific way to expand students' knowledge and get involved and give back to the community, so I wanted to share them with you.

1.) Build Bluebird boxes to set up at a local park or game land. Have your students create tags that can be fixed to the front of the boxes giving passerbys important information on Bluebirds and their habitats. Involve your local conservation district to help the students plan the right habitat for the Bluebirds. (Mackenzie McCollum)

2.) If you want a great project to go with your floriculture/flower arranging class here it is: Take your class to a local community center (example: Grange &/or Young Famers) and have your students work with the community members to teach special needs students or elementary school students how to create floral arrangements. These arrangements can be sold for Valentine's Day and the proceeds can be donated to your charity of choice. (Adam Peachey)

3.) Do you have a courtyard that isn't being used by your school district? Here is an idea: create an outside classroom. You can utilize your plant science class, landscaping class and metals class. The whole school will be able to enjoy and utilize this outdoor classroom. This is a great way to show the students that what they learn in the classroom is applicable in the real world. (PJ Adam)

4.) Create a Community Garden!! Allow local stakeholders to apply for a garden plot. AG. Ed. students can take a part in advertising, kick-off banquet, building the plots and holding educational workshops for the stakeholders who will be gardening the plot. Image all the SAE Proficiency areas your students could apply for through this project!!!!!!! (Darla Romberger)

Top Ten Reasons Why My Student Teaching Cooperating Center Rocks!!!!

I am finishing up my student teaching experience at Greenwood High School in Millerstown, PA. Before I dive right into the meat of this post I wanted to share with you how the student teachers are placed at their cooperating centers. First, we are given a list of about 50 schools that qualify and want to have a student teacher. It is our tasks to visit, send e-mails, research and make phone calls to these schools to narrow it down to the top three centers for us, individually. Finally, you have chosen the top three and you know which one you really, really want to go to at this point. We are done yet, though. Next we have an interview with two professor in the college of Ag, where we must plead our case as to why we should go to our #1 school. Well I begged and I pleaded and I succeeded : ) After spending the last 14 weeks at Greenwood, I am so glad that I practically got down on my hands and knees to get the opportunity to come here. My cooperating teacher has been so helpful and provided me with priceless feedback.

I wanted to share with the NAAE community just why on Earth Greenwood is so AMAZING.

Here are the top 10 reasons why Greenwood's Ag. Ed. department rocks!!!!!

1.) Greenwood's Ag. Ed. department is greatly supported by the administration.

2.) Greenwood S.D. is pretty small, so the community is close and very active in the Ag. Ed. department.

3.) The Ag. Ed. teachers are extraordinary. Just to prove my point ---> Mrs. Krista Pontius, my cooperating teacher : ), just received the Teacher Impact Award. Mr. Mike Clark, the second Ag. Ed. teacher, won the National Agriscience Award.

4.) The students are extremely motivated. I have one student who attends HACC classes all morning and then drives to the H.S. to finish up the last of her high school credits. About 75% of the Ag. Ed. students are involved in an extracurricular sport.

5.) Greenwood lives out the "Living to Serve" line of the FFA motto. The students were so inspired by the community service at National Convention that they organized and held the first Perry County Hunger Banquet.

6.) The teacher's outside of Ag. Ed. are inspiring. I observed one of the biology teachers and to my surprise I was actually understanding what she was talking about! The chemistry teacher allowed me to borrow his equipment for some of my labs and the shop teacher helped me construct a grow house. Everyone is just very supportive of one another.

7.) The FFA chapter attends... well EVERYTHING! The students sign up for every event and Mrs. Pontius and Mr. Clark make it happen!

8.) The Advisory Council is made up of extremely active and wonderful community members, whose sole purpose is to make the educational experience for the students the best.

9.) Greenwood's Ag. Ed. department has

two teachers, 312 students, 12 classes taught a day and 103 FFA members. The classes include: Ag. Exploration, Veterinary Science, Animal Bioscience, Science of Food Processing, Senior Agriculture (credited class), Biotechnology and the list goes on.

10.) Mrs. Pontius and Mr. Clark are always striving to be better, whether it is personally or as a department. Example: Technology is the new wave and they are trying to incorporate it as much as they can into their lessons. Greenwood launched a "Bring Your Own Technology" initiative. This year it was only dispersed to ten teachers as a test run. Of course, the Ag. Ed. department volunteered to be a part of the pilot! Mrs. Pontius and Mr. Clark try to stay ahead of the game for their students' success.