From Tomato Fields to the All-American...a Week to Remember!

Only 2 weeks into the school year, students enrolled in the Cumberland Valley Agriculture Education program can make a lengthy list of learning experiences that are opening their eyes to the world of agriculture!

Agriculture Education has
3 components that are critical
to a successful and
sustainable program.

The week began with students enrolled in Introduction to Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources (AFNR) enjoying a presentation from several CV FFA Officers about the endless opportunities available to them as FFA members.  As a student enrolled in an agriculture class, they are automatically members of the CV FFA chapter and all were encouraged to seek more information about chapter events such as YOLO, A-Day, and the Hunger Banquet.  On Wednesday & Thursday, the Intro to AFNR set up their first SAE (Supervised Agriculture Experience).  To gain skills and knowledge of record-keeping, each student will keep accurate records of their classroom learning and any agriculture activities completed outside the classroom.  Students will also be encouraged to establish an SAE outside of school to complement their career interests.  For more about SAEs, please visit this website.

A student working on creating a timeline.

Meanwhile, students enrolled in Animal Science started to learn concepts about animal domestication and how the uses of animals has changed over the past 5,000 years.  Students worked in groups of 3 to create a timeline project that was shared with other members of the class.  Animals researched included cattle, swine, dogs, cats, sheep, horses, and goats.  Students utilized their creativity to construct a timeline and associated 'fun facts' about their specie.

One group with their finished timeline
about sheep!

Friday proved to be quite a busy day, but ran smoothly due to enthusiastic students that worked hard to accomplish several endeavors.  Students in Introduction to AFNR got a chance to learn about the Hunger Garden at CV while harvesting over 1,000 tomatoes in a friendly competition.

Students were excited to take part in this project and are looking forward to more ways to get involved next spring!  

Students hard at work scouting ripe
tomatoes in the CV Hunger Garden.

Directly after school, 5 students traveled to the All-American Dairy Show to set up photo displays for the world-class cattle that will be competing in Harrisburg this week.  After setting up the floral displays with over 125 chrysanthemums and checking for final details, the group returned to CV for the first home football game of the year. The infamous "Farm Show Milkshakes" were being sold at the game as a fundraiser for the CV FFA chapter.  With a slow start, the demand for these popular items quickly escalated and over 900 milkshakes were sold before running out of materials!

One of 4 photo displays at the
All-American Dairy Show.

Although it was quite a busy week, the excitement and learning will continue next week as 8 students will compete at the All-American Dairy Show in the Dairy Judging Forum and the Dairy Management Contest. Students enrolled in "Growing our Agricultural Leaders (GOAL)" will investigate how a Golden Buddha and a Thermometer relate to their leadership development while Intro to AFNR will learn about numerous CDEs (Career Development Event) available through the National FFA Organization.  Animal Science students can look forward to an edible activity that introduces them to taxonomy and students enrolled in the SAE course will begin to reflect on how to improve their SAE through a tuning protocol.

Great things are happening at CV Agricultural Sciences! Stay tuned for more updates!

~D

 To follow more adventures of the Cumberland Valley Agriculture Science program and FFA chapter, please visitwww.cvschools.org/Ag and www.cvschools.org/FFA.  Follow the chapter on Twitter with the handle @CV_FFA.