The busy life of an Ag teacher

 

Busy week, but a good week. I got to start a unit that I am really excited about and I think that the students are pretty excited about as well: orchard management. I really love trees and especially fruit trees. It requires a lot of time and patience to grow fruit trees but it is highly rewarding to see a tree grow and produce flowers and fruit. This week we did a lab on grafting which I was a little unsure about as it is somewhat dangerous and requires a lot of skill to do it right. Overall, I thought it was a success. I learned some things that I will do differently the next time for sure but I had a good time and the students did as well.

 

With the introduction to agriculture courses we made some soap, which I had never done before but the students had done before. I was impressed with their ability to work efficiently and collaborate with one another. This is one of the many projects that the student work on to raise money for the chapter.



 


Actually, as I am writing this I am sitting in a hotel lobby as we are attending an agricultural conference with a group of students. I admit that I was not really looking forward to spending my weekend chaperoning students and going to workshops, but honestly, so far, it has been a great experience. It is really good to see students have fun and form friendships with each other.






This upcoming week I am excited to start the "Great Grow Along" unit which will teach students how to use the scientific method to conduct biomedical research using rats. It is a curriculum that was written by my current cooperating teacher and it seems awesome.