Finding Where the Next Chapter Begins

 My Great Journey

Welcome back to another post highlighting my journey to becoming an agriculture educator! I have just finished what I called "My Great Journey" of touring the great state of Pennsylvania and visiting many schools, looking for a place where I would find myself comfortable learning and teaching for my student teaching semester next spring. My journey included places I have been before and places I haven't I was able to see schools in Dauphin, Lebanon, Lancaster, Erie, Mckean, and Deleware County. All of them were amazing and all had their own unique benefits that made it hard to pick a top three at the end. 

I was lucky to have safe and easy travels, so on my almost 3-hour journey home from my last visit I was able to ponder and really think about where my top three schools are. I took into account the teacher, their experiences, their goals for the program, what they teach, how they teach, and what I could learn from them. It was difficult to filter all of this, some more than others, but in the end, I was able to present a top three that I was more than happy with. 

I am going to highlight some of my experiences at these schools, they are in no way ranked in order. This is just a collection of unique experiences I had at some of the schools that I was able to observe. 

Lakenau Environmental Science School

This pace was so neat because although I was only there for a half day, I felt instantly submersed into what they were doing. The students were working on creating presentations for 5 different grants that they would then apply for at the end of the semester. Each grant revolved around an environmental science project that they envisioned for the following year. One was a greenhouse, the other was bird boxes for the local park, and one was even creating a floodplain area for their parking lot that sat on a steep hill. The students were super excited about what they were working on and were more than eager to fill me in on their future plans. 

Milton Hershey

I could go on and on about this visit and all of the neat things I saw and that would be at my disposal if I came here, but I will highlight one thing. So, in his classroom, he has a mini-greenhouse attached to it and in there they had a small raised-bed planter that had a robot "farmer" that could sow, plant, weed, and water plants from planting to harvest. It had sensors on it that would constantly run tests and react accordingly. However, it was not working properly, and the teacher told me that this could be my project and I could integrate it into my lesson plans to teach students how technology is used within the agriculture industry and hopefully connect to a whole new realm of students.  

Annville/ Cleona Highschool

Annville was an amazing school, with awesome kids and even greater teachers. My visit there was during FFA week and the day I was there the FFA officers were running leadership programs within the classrooms. This was so cool to be a part of because although I wasn't able to see what a typical classroom day looks like, I was able to talk to the teacher alot and watch the students show how passionate they are about agriculture within the classroom. They were not afraid to flex their school and program pride by telling me all of the cool things they have done and will do to finish out the year. 

Northwestern Area High School

Maple Syrup is how I would sum up this visit and I'm pretty sure the students and the teacher would want it this way. Northwestern is located way up in Erie County almost 20 minutes from the lake. I have never been to this region before and in the time I spent there, I knew I could spend time there. The part that stood out the most to me was the maple sugar program they ran through their FFA there and the recognition it got nationwide. It was neat to see the set-up they had there and how they integrated it into the classroom curriculum as well. 

Otto-Eldred Area High School

On my visit here it was actually a day off for the studnets but I was in the area so I had to make it count. And I absolutely made it count. The teacher was young, but he has grown that program from nothing to one of the biggest in the area in just under 4 years. The style of teaching he has is very rare, but vital at the same time. Most of his days he is helping students work on their SAE projects that are solely worked on at school. It's project-based learning taken to the next step and it's not missing any mark whatsoever. It's a very small school with a graduating class of about forty-six, but ninety- five percent of the student body is taking his classes that are electives. They are utilizing the greenhouse, aquaculture, hydroponics, woodshop, metal shop, welding booths, live animals, and so much more to learn the same things they could by listening to a lecture, but they are retaining much more information that is individualized to their interest.

As you can see, they all had really neat programs and every teacher I visited all had what I was looking for, so making my top three was really tough. I hope that you have enjoyed following along so far as this is really only the beginning and I ask you to stick around and follow along as I continue this amazing journey.