Supervised Agricultural Experience: Life on the Farm

Today I had the pleasure of visiting a senior in the agricultural program at Conrad Weiser. This student grew up on her family farm, in Wernersville, Pa, where she cares for a wide variety of animals including dairy cows, beef cattle, swine, chickens and ducks. I was able to tour this farm that has been in her family since 1930!

Life on her family farm

The farm consists of 50 head of cattle, 20 head of swine, 20 chickens, several ducks, dogs and cats. The student is up at 4:30 am to help her Father and Uncle feed and get the animals set for the day. After school she is back on the farm working with the animals to help prepare the animals for market. She helps manage breeding plans and nutrition plans for the animals. Part of her time is spent making sure that the calves and piglets is are healthy once born. Over the years she has learned valuable skills in barn management, responsibility, customer service and veterinary skills that will be useful in her future career.

Animal agriculture is only part of this operation. In the summer the student and her family harvests and bales between 10,000-11,000 bales of hay and straw. She helps plant, grow and harvest crops to feed her animals as well. Everything is done in house to help save on costs of operation.

This farm has a rich history. I was able to not only meet with the student but, her family as well. I was amazed to learn this barn was built in 1901 and was built with many unique features. For example, the barn has an indoor silo that was at first made from wood. The indoor silo keeps the silage from freezing in the winter which is key for Eastern,Pa.

The Educator View 

This SAE visit taught me a lot about managing student SAE projects. My expectation in class is students will use the Agriculture Experience Tracker (AET) to track their hours. Each marking period students must have 5 journal entries from their project. These journals should illustrate skills the students learned through their project. The AET system is also used to log all hours and financial records for the project. Each marking period I will go through the report generated on AET and make comments on the students projects. 

Students have time during their flex time or "Personalized Learning Time" at the end of the day to come and work on their SAE or get help and guidance on their SAE. During this time I will help students look for research in their project area to help narrow in on a specific project. I enjoy using this time to help work individually with students on their projects since it is a common time both the student and I have in the building together.

My Future Program 

At my future program I will keep the number of journal entries for the student SAE project as a graded. This helps students of all levels of engagement in FFA and the agriculture program to be able to have a SAE. Keeping the records can show an ongoing SAE as well as a student who may take agriculture for one semester learn the same skill set.

I will keep the idea of projects not having limits. A project can look like preforming research on common fish in the area and doing a presentation or can be something more stretched out over time like research projects or working at a vet clinic.

I use to think of SAE in boxes but, I have learned these projects are meant to be student centered and teacher facilitated for a reason. The model at CW allows students to get their feet wet and learn a little about something they are interested in or dive right in. The idea of having no limits or requirements on hours and such allows for diversity among student projects and helps that student who might take agriculture as a senior for the first time have the experience of a SAE and learn the skills without scaring them away.

I will also try for once a month to have SAE Friday. This day will be looking at how we have grown over the past month in our project area. This can include content knowledge or professional knowledge. At this time I will also provide a professional skill. This can be looking at resume and cover letters or even just how to manage time more effectively. I think doing something in our class once a month connected to their projects helps keep them relevant in our class and lives.