Harrisburg 41-2
Harrisburg 41-2
Celebrating CTE Month with FFA
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
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.
