Harrisburg 41-2

Celebrating CTE Month with FFA

The Harrisburg School District Season 1 Episode 6

Every February, the CTE community celebrates CTE Month® to raise awareness of the role that CTE has in readying learners for college and career success. CTE Month is also a time to recognize and celebrate the achievements and accomplishments of our CTE partners at the local, state and national level.

This month, we turn the reins over to Mrs. Breanne Lynch, CTE Coordinator for the District, who will interview our CTSO advisors and student leaders. Today's episode features HHS's longstanding FFA program. Joining us are:

  •  Mr. Josh Christianson, Instructor and FFA Co-Advisor
  • Owen Murphy, FFA Chapter President and District VP
  • Emily Watson, Chapter Students Advisor and District Reporter

Career & Technical Education at HHS

Transcript 

00:00:01 Breanne 

All right, thanks for joining us. 

00:00:02 Breanne 

We have Harrisburg High School FFA chapter. 

00:00:05 Breanne 

If you could briefly could just give us your name, your office and maybe what's the favorite thing that you do in FFA. 

00:00:11 Owen 

Hi, I'm Owen Murphy. 

00:00:13 Owen 

I'm a junior. 

00:00:14 Owen 

I'm the Harrisburg FFA president and I have to say that my favorite thing that I do in FFA is just getting around and interacting with the Members. 

00:00:20 Owen 

And you know, making an impact with them and getting to know them a little. 

00:00:25 Emily 

Hi, I'm Emily Watson. 

00:00:27 Emily 

I'm in 11th grade. 

00:00:28 Emily 

I'm your Harrisburg FFA student advisor and some of my favorite things about FFA and things I like enjoy are like Owen said, talking to the members but also CDE activities. 

00:00:40 Emily 

So I'm in floor culture and I find. 

00:00:41 Emily 

That a lot of fun. 

00:00:42 Breanne 

OK, so CDE for our. 

00:00:44 Breanne 

Audience, can you tell us what a CDE is? 

00:00:47 Emily 

A CE is a career development event, so it's basically establishing different careers. 

00:00:52 Emily 

So like there's Ag, Mac floriculture, dairy cattle, eval. 

00:00:57 Emily 

This continues on and on, and there's always a spot. 

00:00:59 Breanne 

For everybody, so lots of different career development experiences and opportunities to practice skills inside of agriculture. 

00:01:05 Breanne 

OK and then one of our. 

00:01:07 Breanne 

Co advisors. 

00:01:09 Mr. Christianson 

Yeah, and I'm Josh Christensen, one of the Co advisors for the Harrisburg FFA chapter, one of the great things about FFA is how students can pick something that they are passionate about, something that they want to do, that they enjoy, maybe a career path that they're interested in and really hit the ground running, doing a lot of different activities. 

00:01:28 Mr. Christianson 

And so FA. 

00:01:29 Mr. Christianson 

Provides those opportunities for study. 

00:01:32 Mr. Christianson 

Yeah, that that is great about teaching agriculture too is it's. 

00:01:36 Mr. Christianson 

It's relevant information. 

00:01:37 Mr. Christianson 

It's stuff that that students are going to use throughout their life. 

00:01:40 Mr. Christianson 

Whether they focus on it and do it as a career development event, or if they're just doing it to try it out, it's something that you can use forever. 

00:01:48 Breanne 

So, let's talk about that in general. First, maybe before we jump farther into FFA as a CTA. So, let's talk about a F&R, Ag, food, and natural resources as a career cluster. 

00:01:57 Breanne 

So, Mr. 

00:01:57 Breanne 

Christensen, do you want to dive into that and maybe define that for our audience a little? 

00:02:00 

OK. 

00:02:01 Mr. Christianson 

Well, Ag food, natural resources are kind of a broad area and that's why it's not just called agriculture education, because when we think of agriculture a lot of times students and even adults think of agriculture as farming, production, agriculture. 

00:02:15 Mr. Christianson 

But there's so much more in that and, and especially in Harrisburg. 

00:02:18 Mr. Christianson 

We don't have a lot of students that grew up on a farm or plan to go back to. 

00:02:21 Mr. Christianson 

Farm we're very urban in that in that regard, and so it's being able to teach things that even though less than 2% of the population in the US are actively involved in production agriculture, something like 45% of all jobs in the US relate to agriculture in some way, and so we want to show students that there's that. 

00:02:43 Mr. Christianson 

There's those opportunities in agriculture and a high demand for. 

00:02:47 Mr. Christianson 

That matter, that that they can go into, and it doesn't have. 

00:02:50 Mr. Christianson 

To be production. 

00:02:51 Breanne 

Day so oh, and you have a part time job moving snow, right? Yeah, so how does that relate to AF&R? 

00:02:56 Breanne 

And FFA and agriculture. 

00:02:58 Owen 

I guess one way it would relate is that there's a lot of you know, machinery involved with that, and our and our courses. 

00:03:04 Owen 

Here they offer we're doing Ag technologies right now. 

00:03:07 Owen 

That's one way that helps you. 

00:03:09 Owen 

You know, understand the machinery and basics of that, and you know, like Mr. 

00:03:13 Owen 

Christensen saying, that's you know it's not just all related to machinery, your directly to production Ag. 

00:03:20 Owen 

We have everything from you know Ag business, so you can be in business and still be involved in air culture all the way up to sciences. 

00:03:27 Owen 

So there's a broad spectrum of many different ways that one could go with in the agricultural industry. 

00:03:34 Breanne 

Yeah, so you're hitting on the landscaping and horticulture. 

00:03:37 Breanne 

That type of thing, and you talked about floriculture. 

00:03:40 Breanne 

Yeah, alright, expand a little bit. 

00:03:42 Emily 

Emily, so floriculture is basically just like the study of plants. 

00:03:46 Emily 

I think it's like a lot of fun, so you build different floor arrangements and like within the competition you do that and then you get tested over the material. 

00:03:54 Emily 

How to grow plants properly. 

00:03:56 Emily 

Different like ways to measure paneling for a greenhouse. 

00:04:01 Emily 

And then you also get to do plant identification. 

00:04:04 Emily 

So like here we have a plant area upstairs in our wood shop that has a bunch of different plants and we use some of the plants that we grow up there to help with our identification process. 

00:04:13 Breanne 

And someday we won't have to grow plants inside above. 

00:04:16 Breanne 

A wood shop. We'll be, we'll get to grow them outside in the awesome greenhouse. 

00:04:20 Breanne 

So, Mr. Christianson, do you want to share a little bit maybe about the future plans of your program. 

00:04:26 Mr. Christianson 

We're always growing, growing the program, trying to increase what we offer for students and really tie into students interest. 

00:04:34 Mr. Christianson 

One of the big things coming up that we were grant given a grant to build a greenhouse and a lot of outdoor plant growing opportunities and so we're really looking forward to getting that off the ground and going we want to show students careers in precision Ag, and that's a big one. 

00:04:57 Mr. Christianson 

And one touched on the Ag technologies course and that'll be a big part of that course is precision Ag students that are interested in technology or computers and that kind of thing and GPS and all that this. 

00:05:10 Mr. Christianson 

They're going to learn a lot more about that in those in that Ag technology course. 

00:05:14 Mr. Christianson 

We're really focusing on building the welding program too. 

00:05:18 Mr. Christianson 

Or Ag metal so that more students can be successful in that high demand career area. 

00:05:25 Breanne 

That's awesome, and we know that the career pathway of FNR so large. 

00:05:28 Breanne 

So how does FFA as a CTO career and technical student organization, really benefit learners and members? 

00:05:36 Owen 

And one of the biggest ways you know with our C's and LD's you know career development events. 

00:05:41 Owen 

They develop that career, show them different pathways and give them an example of how they can go, and you know, kind of narrow down their focus a little bit more for after high school. 

00:05:50 Owen 

Help them see these careers and want to be, you know, be involved in agriculture production and also with their LDEs. 

00:05:58 Owen 

These are leadership development events that gives them skills to take this farther throughout you know into the workforce into the real world to give them soft skills. 

00:06:06 Owen 

You know speaking skills, whatever those may be and just, you know, help develop them into successful career in a career path. 

00:06:14 Mr. Christianson 

Yeah, not only that, but it. It also gives students the opportunity to try things out that maybe they won't like you know. And that's the SAE's too, or supervised agricultural experiences that students. 

00:06:24 Mr. Christianson 

Take in, usually outside of the school day they get to, they get to research what careers they think they're interested in, and then maybe they decide they don't like that, rather than getting through four years of college and then finding out well, that was a waste of time. 

00:06:39 Mr. Christianson 

Because I don't like doing this, I don't like anything about this. 

00:06:42 Mr. Christianson 

I want to change my career path and we all know as adults. 

00:06:45 Mr. Christianson 

We all know people that that were in those situations that went to school now. 

00:06:48 Mr. Christianson 

But now I'm stuck with this because I spent so much money on college whereas being involved in FFA and doing things and learning about different opportunities helps students to say no. 

00:07:00 Mr. Christianson 

That's not what I want. 

00:07:01 Mr. Christianson 

I thought I thought I was. 

00:07:02 Mr. Christianson 

To be ex in ex career since I was 1/3 grader but turns out now that I've seen more about it. 

00:07:08 Mr. Christianson 

I don't want anything to do with that. 

00:07:09 Mr. Christianson 

Let me try something else and career development events really help with that because it opens those doors and they could kind of see you know the specific career, whether it's animal science or livestock, whether it's poultry or Ag mechanics or floor culture or whatever it might be. 

00:07:23 Mr. Christianson 

The leadership development events, the LD's that Owen was talking about, are kind of more broad, based where everybody needs to know how to apply for a job and interview. 

00:07:32 Mr. Christianson 

Everybody needs to be able to speak in front of others or to be able to run a meeting like parliamentary procedure and do that those things properly and so those leadership development events kind of time more into a broad range of what everybody, not just Ag kids but everybody. 

00:07:46 Breanne 

Needs so LEC DES AES. 

00:07:49 Breanne 

All the acronyms right? 

00:07:51 Breanne 

So, FFA has a broad history, right? 

00:07:54 Breanne 

It's a very historical organization, it's ebbed and flowed, and it's sort of stood the test of time for C TSO for learners. 

00:08:00 Breanne 

Do you want to talk maybe a little bit about just FFA? 

00:08:03 Breanne 

In general, the history of it, and then how your membership transcends past high school. 

00:08:09 Mr. Christianson 

Test their knowledge a little bit. 

00:08:10 Owen 

Here, well our chapter specifically it started in 1969, right? So we've been around in Harrisburg for a long-time helping kids out, but I know that this year I believe FFA just held their 95th annual National Convention. 

00:08:28 Owen 

So, it's been around a long-time and really and helps develop kids in many different ways. 

00:08:35 Owen 

And you know, like Emily over here, she wasn't really involved in it at the start. 

00:08:40 Owen 

And then, you know, found a way to and enjoy it, so I don't know if you want to touch on kind of how you found out about FFA and started being more involved in it. 

00:08:50 Emily 

Yeah, so I actually was in 4H before I started FFA I was in 4H from 5th grade to present day. 

00:08:58 Emily 

So I actually reached out to our like leader of that and I was like hey is there any way that I can get like more involved and she actually told me to join FFA and so I made sure freshman year when we or eighth good year when we were registering for courses to take an Ag class the following year because I knew that we had to sign up for one of those to be in FFA. 

00:09:18 Emily 

I started off very basic, didn't really know what I was doing in FFA and stuff like that, but doing my Internet Ag mechanics class really opened up the doors to like me, doing different things and like for CDE wise. 

00:09:32 Emily 

I started off in dairy cattle evaluation. 

00:09:34 Emily 

Definitely was not for me. 

00:09:36 Emily 

So definitely an experiment process and then I joined floor culture and found out that's where it's just a lot of fun you're building with a bunch of different things. 

00:09:43 Emily 

Learning new things constantly you can never know too much about plants is what I learned about that and then last year I took so many different courses and realized I wanted to be more involved. 

00:09:54 Emily 

So I applied to be a chapter officer and got it and then this year I wanted to be more involved, even more so. 

00:10:02 Emily 

Then I applied for district office and also got that as well. 

00:10:05 Emily 

So, getting more involved with that and I'm hoping in the future next year applying for state office and running for. 

00:10:12 Breanne 

OK, so I think that was awesome and I'm so glad you got involved and you found out that course work was a great way to kind of launch into FA along with your experience through 4H. 

00:10:22 Breanne 

So you talked about being a district officer, so could you talk maybe a little bit about that? 

00:10:26 Breanne 

Just again, maybe the officership and the different opportunities once we graduate from Harrisburg. 

00:10:32 Owen 

So as a sophomore and junior in high school, you can run for a district FFA officer position. 

00:10:39 Owen 

We're here in Hairspray and District 7. 

00:10:41 Owen 

So this year Emily and I both ran and we both got positions on the officer team. 

00:10:46 Owen 

So basically we need to go out and work further with the state officers and kind of get more insight on what's going on in South Dakota FFA and have a say in that. 

00:10:56 Emily 

The Yeah so we just got back from dot training which is district officer training that was held in Pier. 

00:11:02 Emily 

We got to meet with all the other district offices in South Dakota and got to really experience different things. 

00:11:08 Emily 

We did breakout sessions. 

00:11:10 Emily 

We learned about what our positions hold to, and then we also created our district. 

00:11:15 Emily 

Events for this year, which, including our are including a food drive and then also end of the year fund like activity night where we meet at West Central and host like. 

00:11:26 Emily 

Where we serve food to each other and have like walking tacos. 

00:11:29 Emily 

Then we play like yard games and get to just know other people. 

00:11:32 Emily 

In our district. 

00:11:34 Breanne 

So, beyond a local officer and a district officer, how can I join FFA or be a member in a leadership role beyond high school? 

00:11:43 Mr. Christianson 

So students after high school are oftentimes still members of the local chapter. 

00:11:49 Mr. Christianson 

A lot of colleges do have a collegiate FFA program as well. 

00:11:52 Mr. Christianson 

South Dakota State has one. 

00:11:56 Mr. Christianson 

But students can stay members of their local chapter. They just don't compete in the events. One of the big things that that after graduation membership is for is to continue to develop their SAE's to earn awards at the national level, such as the American degree. 

00:12:15 Mr. Christianson 

And proficiencies at the national level, which is which? I'll deal with students SAE's. 

00:12:21 Mr. Christianson 

And so they can stay involved that way. 

00:12:22 Mr. Christianson 

And then of course being alumni members or supporters of the local program or the state program. 

00:12:29 Mr. Christianson 

Those are also ways to be to be to stay involved as they after they graduate. 

00:12:34 Breanne 

Yeah, an organization that's 95 years old, I would imagine you have a very large and extensive alumni network, is that correct? 

00:12:41 Mr. Christianson 

Yeah, and alumni there is an official National Alumni Association for the FFA, which is a very large organization in itself. 

00:12:51 Mr. Christianson 

Locally, some chapters have local alumni the way that we work. 

00:12:57 Mr. Christianson 

Ours is not necessarily an organized group, but more just a. 

00:13:00 Mr. Christianson 

A list of supporters that we have and a list of former members and a list of people that support agriculture and support. 

00:13:06 Mr. Christianson 

Students that want to be successful in agriculture and so we reach out to those. 

00:13:11 Mr. Christianson 

Those individuals, as we need help or as we see ways that they can support our students and it's a good way to keep the community involved and to help them reminisce about their time in. 

00:13:24 Mr. Christianson 

FFA, but just to be involved. 

00:13:27 Mr. Christianson 

And to be supportive. 

00:13:28 Breanne 

So we know that at the heart of all the CTO's service and impacting community engagement, and I know that FA has been very active in our community and in those types of rules. Can you share maybe a community service project or a service learning experience that you've had through FA? 

00:13:42 Owen 

I'd say my favorite actual community service project that we've done is that this year we organized a large farmer feed at the grain elevator here South of town, and Worthen. 

00:13:54 Owen 

And this way we're able to make lunches and go out to the grain elevator and you know, talk and interact with the farmers and the truckers and just know that. 

00:14:02 Owen 

And let them be known that we are here. 

00:14:04 Owen 

We're FFA. 

00:14:05 Owen 

We're supporters of the community. 

00:14:06 Owen 

We have your backs and you know, just showing appreciation for them and what they do in our Industry we also just got back. 

00:14:14 Emily 

In the banquet last week with serving and doing community service with them, so we had a couple of kids going during the day during school hours and the rest of us that helped during the night hours. 

00:14:23 Emily 

To help feed people that went. 

00:14:25 Breanne 

There, so yeah, we also know it's important to expose kids to learning experiences early and often, right? 

00:14:30 Breanne 

And so, learner interest Day is our program where we provide career development experiences for kids in our elementary schools. 

00:14:35 Breanne 

And we know that FFA has been a great supporter of that. 

00:14:37 Breanne 

So there was an animal program and I think this semester you guys are doing edible soil profiles. 

00:14:42 Breanne 

That's really exciting. 

00:14:43 Breanne 

So, can you talk maybe a little bit about the experiences of working with 2nd through 5th graders and getting them excited about careers in agriculture? 

00:14:50 Emily 

It definitely is like interesting and like to see how they get involved at that young age. 

00:14:55 Emily 

To just like see bringing something that you would have never thought you can really back to soil. 

00:15:00 Emily 

For and since like we're making dirt cups tomorrow, when we present and like just bringing that in to teach them about the different layers of soil and get them engaged, it's just really exciting to see like learn on that. 

00:15:12 Breanne 

We know there's some great business and industry supporters throughout the agricultural sector. 

00:15:17 Breanne 

We know that we're going to launch a registered apprenticeship soon. 

00:15:20 Breanne 

With Weller brothers and Southeast Tech and then we're recipients of many grants. 

00:15:24 Breanne 

Whether it's a workforce education grant or CTE innovative equipment and grant that help bring things like the future greenhouse on board here on our campus, which will change the landscape of the West side. 

00:15:32 Breanne 

Or building, are there other business and industry supporters or specific grant projects you'd like to highlight and show your thanks and appreciation for? 

00:15:39 Owen 

Yeah, I mean our largest last year is at our annual FFA Banquet Sioux Valley Co-op. They came to the banquet with a it was $1000 grant or check for us and just, you know. 

00:15:51 Owen 

Gave that donation to us, which shows our support and we'd just like to say thank you for that and. 

00:15:55 Owen 

All that they've done so far. 

00:15:56 Mr. Christianson 

Yeah, and we get a lot of individual support as well. 

00:16:01 Mr. Christianson 

And you know I touched on the alumni and the former members and stuff. 

00:16:05 Mr. Christianson 

We get a lot of individuals. 

00:16:06 Mr. Christianson 

Danny Harris has been a huge supporter of FFA for a long, long time. 

00:16:11 Mr. Christianson 

Time and other individuals like that that come in and help coach our coach. 

00:16:15 Mr. Christianson 

Our CD teams to give us some knowledge from the from the industry that that maybe Miss Foster and I don't have and. 

00:16:23 Mr. Christianson 

And share their expertise with students as well. 

00:16:26 Breanne 

Do you talk about your partnership with the outdoor campus? 

00:16:28 Breanne 

Maybe through the wildlife and fisheries class? 

00:16:31 Mr. Christianson 

The outdoor campus is a great partner for us use. 

00:16:34 Mr. Christianson 

Every year we try to take students from the natural or the wildlife fisheries class to either go ice fishing or fishing with them. 

00:16:42 Mr. Christianson 

They'll come in and, and we've had had opportunities to line up them coming in into class and doing some game processing. 

00:16:52 Mr. Christianson 

With us and there there's tons of opportunities that we haven't even taken full advantage of yet. 

00:16:58 Mr. Christianson 

But the outdoor campus is a great place for us to go to kind of add on to what students can learn in the class. 

00:17:05 Mr. Christianson 

The game, Fish and parks too. 

00:17:07 Mr. Christianson 

We've gotten archery materials from them, so we can teach archery in those classes. 

00:17:12 Mr. Christianson 

The South Dakota Fish curriculum and the equipment that goes along with that all comes from the outdoor campus in the game. 

00:17:18 Mr. Christianson 

Fishing parks. 

00:17:20 Breanne 

And other non traditional partners like South Dakota National Guard, right? 

00:17:22 Breanne 

Letting students know that there's Ag. 

00:17:24 Breanne 

Communities inside of those service industries as well. 

00:17:27 Owen 

I think that's one of the great things here too, is that we try to promote more of our LED's and that just welcomes anyone and. 

00:17:34 Owen 

Yes, it's nice to have an interest and you know support for air culture, but just as a way to being an organization that will help you develop those leadership skills and those lifelong career skills That you will Need throughout your life whether it's employability or just speaking. 

00:17:51 Emily 

And like even within our classes, I feel like I've pulled knowledge that I wouldn't like even if I wasn't involved with FFA, that I would have used today like we did food processing last year for one of my courses and like learning about different types of milks, different types of cheeses, everything that's like in your local store that you can buy that I had no idea it was there in the first place. 

00:18:11 Breanne 

Yeah, JoAnne was talking about that. 

00:18:13 Breanne 

She's like the things that are in your kitchen, right? 

00:18:14 Breanne 

And then, I mean, I've gotten to some heated debates with agrarians about what is the definition of milk like? 

00:18:20 Breanne 

That's a hot topic right in FFA. 

00:18:22 Breanne 

Which correlates to a lot of. 

00:18:23 Breanne 

Your CD events you know and talking about how we classify things and what makes milk and is almond milk and it's a nut. 

00:18:31 Breanne 

Right, like it's not a milk. 

00:18:35 JoAnne 

One thing that I've learned over the years is that FFA is so much more than just competing in things and learning about farm equipment. 

00:18:45 JoAnne 

Things you do in everyday life, grocery shopping, finding the perfect cut of meat, grades of egg. 

00:18:55 JoAnne 

Skills that I really wish I would have had a long time ago that I didn't because I wasn't in FFA. 

00:19:03 Mr. Christianson 

Listening to JoAnne’s stories, it's really clear that she's upset that she was not an FFA member, and honestly, honestly, I hear that a lot more than I hear anything else. 

00:19:13 Mr. Christianson 

I wish that I would have been an FFA. 

00:19:15 Mr. Christianson 

I have never heard someone say it. Yeah, FFA should never done that. 

00:19:19 Mr. Christianson 

Nobody has ever said that, but I hear a lot of adults say, oh, I wish I could have done that when I was in high school or I didn't even know that was an option when I was in high school. 

00:19:28 JoAnne 

And I think when I was in high school, although we did have FFA, I always felt like it was not for me. 

00:19:35 JoAnne 

It was for farm kids or kids who liked metal shop class. 

00:19:40 JoAnne 

So I guess there was kind of a stigma associated with that. 

00:19:44 Mr. Christianson 

And we fight that stigma. Still today, a lot of people don't realize that it was 1988 when the FFA changed its name from future Farmers of America to just the national FFA organization, and that's to show that broad scope of agriculture that is not for future farmers. Yes, future farmers are welcome as well, but it's not. 

00:20:04 Mr. Christianson 

Just for future farmers, it's for anyone that's interested in in the Ag careers. 

00:20:10 Emily 

And like even for Ag mechanics like intro to Ag, we learned about different types of tools. 

00:20:15 Emily 

So like if you're a DIY or when you're older, you have some background knowledge of like you're doing at home projects of what each tool is used for. 

00:20:23 Emily 

And like the differences between different types of hammers and stuff like that. 

00:20:26 Breanne 

So could each of you share maybe? 

00:20:29 Breanne 

Like the AHA moment when you knew that being a member and part of this organization was the right decision for you, like when it all clicked. 

00:20:37 Emily 

Probably when I was a freshman and like was getting towards the end of my year. 

00:20:42 Emily 

I just like have had a really hard time with like friends and getting involved in certain things and like for so many years I did volleyball and then that just didn't really click for me in high school and so like getting into that class and realizing like there's a spot for me and there's like open arms like it was welcoming and just allowing that opportunity to feel like I was welcomed. 

00:21:02 Emily 

And like there was room for me and I was able to experience what I wanted to experience and was able to take things away. 

00:21:07 Emily 

It was just like my aha moment that this is where I belong this. 

00:21:10 Emily 

It is something that I'm very interested in and has like led me to decide what my future career is going. 

00:21:15 Emily 

To be so. 

00:21:16 Owen 

I was kind of biased in my decision in joining FFA, coming from more of an Ag background. 

00:21:20 Owen 

I'd always decided that I was going to be an FFA, but getting into high school and seeing the organization and just understanding that it's much more than just, you know, the production air culture that I relate to. 

00:21:32 Owen 

And just having abilities to meet new people and develop those skills. 

00:21:36 Owen 

I knew that FFA would be a perfect opportunity for that to just develop me more as a person as a person and also help out my career. 

00:21:43 Owen 

So freshman year and decided to join and run for an officer position. 

00:21:47 Owen 

And you know the rest has been history. 

00:21:48 Mr. Christianson 

Since so, and I probably wouldn't be an Ag. Teacher, if it weren't for FFA. 

00:21:53 Mr. Christianson 

You know the experiences that I had in high school in FFA and getting involved really broadened my spectrum of what I what I knew and kind of led me down this career path. 

00:22:07 Mr. Christianson 

And so that's a big part of who I am after all these years. 

00:22:12 JoAnne 

Can you give us some examples of how students get experience outside the classroom while taking these courses? 

00:22:21 Owen 

I just one thing I'd like to touch on more is our SAE programs are supervised air cultural experiences. 

00:22:27 Owen 

These really just helps students get out there in the world, and, you know, find an interest somewhat related to air culture. 

00:22:33 Owen 

We have things all the way from Emily with her plans to we have a student making signs out of the out of the what do you call the machine? 

00:22:41 Owen 

Yeah, and then we have others involved on, you know, working in animal clinics or me with the tractor restoration. 

00:22:48 Owen 

These just help students find and develop those skills even more and find more of a passion for agriculture. So I think those hold a really high poor in Sir FA and just to developing people's interest and opportunities. 

00:23:01 Emily 

I definitely can see that as well, like different things along the line of that, like for instance, right now I'm doing peer mentoring with our Ed class and so like being able to sit down on that and like learn about different things about teaching and then like having just those open doors to be able to go out and do things. 

00:23:21 Emily 

And it's always OK. 

00:23:23 Emily 

If your like your SAE project changes like I can tell you I've had multiple along the years. I mean it went from working at B&G to. 

00:23:34 Emily 

Working at scooters to buy plant science one now and making lesson plans for our like younger kids like the dirt, soil lessons like it. 

00:23:43 Emily 

It's a very broad thing that you can do, and anything can basically be turned into an SAE project. 

00:23:48 Breanne 

You point out a good thing Owen, like we have that opportunity for internships at the senior level, right? 

00:23:53 Breanne 

Or kind of that second semester. 

00:23:54 Breanne 

Maybe of your junior year, so we've done a lot of veteran. 

00:23:56 Breanne 

3 internships with both Dakota Large animal clinic and the Tea Vet clinic. 

00:24:00 Breanne 

So students that have that interest maybe in veterinary technician are becoming a DVM. 

00:24:04 Breanne 

Someday they have that opportunity to be in that real life. 

00:24:07 Breanne 

Patient care centered area. 

00:24:09 Breanne 

So, we've done other internship experiences along the way in many areas in FNR, but those are. 

00:24:14 Breanne 

Some of the highlights. 

00:24:16 Mr. Christianson 

We talked a lot about the three circle model of education, which is one of the circles is instruction classroom, laboratory work. 

00:24:24 Mr. Christianson 

One of the circles is FFA involvement and one of the circles is your SAE and how all three of those have to fit together to give you the most successful opportunities. 

00:24:35 Mr. Christianson 

Through education and when you when you only take a class, you still learn a lot. 

00:24:40 Mr. Christianson 

But it doesn't really give you the that strongest background. 

00:24:44 Mr. Christianson 

If you're only in a class and you do some FFA activities, that helps, that makes it stronger. 

00:24:49 Mr. Christianson 

But when you tie all three together with your personal experiences and your personal interest in your SAE, that's where you going to learn the most. 

00:24:55 Mr. Christianson 

That's going to have the most success. 

00:24:57 Owen 

Through education and just like applying what you learned in the class to that SE to develop that form, you know gives you more understanding of everything agricultural related. 

00:25:02 

And then. 

00:25:08 Breanne 

Christensen, can you share maybe some of the opportunities that support educators and advisors, like through SDA, CTE and the FFA alumni network and those types of things? 

00:25:15 Mr. Christianson 

Yeah, we talked about students getting involved in students meeting other people throughout the state in the country and also for a teachers or CTE teachers in general. 

00:25:26 Mr. Christianson 

The organizations to. 

00:25:28 Mr. Christianson 

To support Ag teachers the National Association of Agricultural Educators or in AAE is a huge organization with members all across the country with lots of opportunities, the. 

00:25:40 Mr. Christianson 

With association of current technical educators, a CTE also is for is for other areas of study besides Ag. 

00:25:50 Mr. Christianson 

But all the career and technical education programs for me having been a leader in both of those organizations, has helped me tremendously too has given me so much. 

00:26:01 Mr. Christianson 

Networking opportunities to talk to other teachers who go through similar situations that I may be going through to learn curriculum ideas from them. 

00:26:12 Mr. Christianson 

To develop my own leadership skills, which is something that we continue to work on and we teach our students to continue to work on and get better at. 

00:26:19 Mr. Christianson 

You know there's just all these opportunities to travel to be involved and continue your involvement and continue getting better and be a lifelong. 

00:26:28 Breanne 

Learner, so if I'm a learner in an eighth grade or 9th grade. 

00:26:32 Breanne 

Cool, and I'm like I haven't really found my place yet. 

00:26:35 Breanne 

How do I become an FFA member in Harrisburg? 

00:26:38 Emily 

So you would want to join an A class, and within that you're automatically a member and making sure that you're just attending three events this semester, which I know three sounds like a lot, but if you're getting involved with your CDE. 

00:26:49 Emily 

Each competition counts towards that, or we have fun nights that we host or even community service that goes towards that. 

00:26:55 Emily 

But if you're even questioning about if you should join FFA, I would definitely recommend taking a class. 

00:26:59 Emily 

It definitely opens up a lot of opportunities to you, and definitely opens like so many doors that you didn't even know existed. 

00:27:07 Emily 

IC could tell you that I never wanted to be like. 

00:27:10 Emily 

Never thought I'd go into agriculture or anything to go in with that, but like it has led me to decide that I wanna go into agriculture education. 

00:27:16 Emily 

So like I definitely feel like it opens you up to like who you truly are and if like you enjoy it, that's great. 

00:27:23 Emily 

If you don't, at least you can say that you tried it and saw like your side of this. 

00:27:27 Emily 

Going into those intro classes will definitely introduce you to the different things, and then as you go on in your high school career, you can break off into the more specific classes. 

00:27:36 Emily 

So definitely just like jumping into those into the class like intro classes before you go into something like more specific. 

00:27:42 Owen 

I guess one of the biggest things. 

00:27:43 Owen 

Is if you don't know what you want to do, there's a lot of us around who are willing just to talk to you and come down, or when you're coming in for freshman orientation or 8th grade and a set of a members will be there to talk to them and push them to join these classes. 

00:27:57 Owen 

And these two classes. 

00:27:59 Owen 

The first one is injured AF and R. 

00:28:01 Owen 

And also you can take the insured. 

00:28:03 Owen 

And those will get you in the door and just help you start your FA and also your time and agricultural education so. 

00:28:12 Mr. Christianson 

And that insured Ag mechanics class is called intro to trades now. 

00:28:15 Mr. Christianson 

But it's the same course. 

00:28:17 Mr. Christianson 

We're also going to offer an Ag communications course to the freshman next year too. 

00:28:22 Mr. Christianson 

And so a freshman in the Freshman Academy next year going to have some great opportunities. 

00:28:26 Mr. Christianson 

There's going to be classes all day long. 

00:28:28 Mr. Christianson 

In the Ag program that they can take, whether it's like Owen said, the insured to F&R, which is going to be a very broad course that that offers a lot of different subjects or topics that students are probably going to be interested in. 

00:28:42 Mr. Christianson 

A lot of them, or the internal trades, they're going to learn to work with. 

00:28:45 Mr. Christianson 

Their hands are going to identify tools going to lead them into a lot of different careers. 

00:28:48 Mr. Christianson 

There are a lot of different other courses such as welding and other trades courses, and then a communications course is going to really get them a jump start on being able to speak in front of people. 

00:28:59 Mr. Christianson 

Being able to be involved and work with their community and work with other classes. 

00:29:04 Mr. Christianson 

As well. 

00:29:05 Breanne 

Yeah, it sounds like a great way to promote all of the different options and availability inside of a F&R and just to get involved right. 

00:29:12 Breanne 

Make some friends. 

00:29:13 Breanne 

Hang out. 

00:29:13 Breanne 

Find a place where you feel like you belong. 

00:29:15 Breanne 

Like Emily said a lot, which is great. 

00:29:16 Breanne 

So thanks for being here today and sharing your. 

00:29:18 Breanne 

Passion for FA&C 

00:29:19 Breanne 

TSO's thank you thank you. 

 

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