Urban. Agriculture. Education.

FACT: Everyday I am faced with new adventures and meet outstanding people. This is just one of the many perks of my internship this summer. If you haven't read previous posts, I am currently working as an intern for the 4-H Extension Office. One of my major duties is to coordinate urban programing and conduct workshops for inner city summer programs. I have the opportunity to bring agriculture to the city and teach kids some pretty cool skills that they might otherwise never experience.


We, the other intern and myself, put together our workshops and go three times a week to three different locations and hold our workshops in the city. When starting this whole adventure, I will admit that I was a bit nervous. I wasn't sure how my students would respond to me or if they would even be interested in my activities. Well let me tell you there was no reason for me to be hesitant or nervous. As kids started walking into the building I was received with hugs and huge smiles. They were ecstatic to be there. I used this excitement to escalade the entire workshop with high positive energy. Because it was our first workshop, we spent some time getting to know each of them. Learning each of your students names is so important. Not only will you benefit from knowing your students names, but they will feel privileged that you care enough to learn a piece of personal information about them. Possibly one of my favorite and most effective pieces of advice that I received about education is to invest in your students. If you invest your time into your students they will invest their time into you. Love this!


I have most definitely seen this played out in in the urban programing that I am involved with. These students love relating their personal lives to the topics that I discuss during the lesson. I allow a lot of sharing. Probably more than I should; however, it's a safe environment where kids can share their opinions and have a voice without being judged for it. Not only do we strive to incorporate hands on activities in agriculture but we also work on developing leadership skills.


Yes, yes I have gone a bit off track here, but I felt the need to share some of these awesome things I have seen happening over the past few weeks! Now about what we are actually doing in these workshops. The program we are working with is for 6 weeks during the summer. In putting this program together, I did a bit of research and came across these really cool "Earth bracelets." The bracelets had different colored beads on them that each represented something different about our earth. For example, The blue bead represented the earth's water and then a short description about the water cycle was to be explained. After reading about this an idea popped into my head. What about agriculture bracelets? So for our first workshop we made bracelets and key chains with different colored beads that represented different aspect of agriculture and their importance.


Our beads represented the following topics:
Green: Plants
Brown: Soil
Blue: Water
Orange/Black: Day/Night/ Weather
Yellow: Sun
Purple: Animals
Clear: People!


We briefly described the importance of each and their direct influence in agriculture. I say briefly because for the next 5 weeks we are going to divide these topics and create a lesson for each of them. For example, the next week we did a lesson on plants and soil (green and brown bead) and this week we are working on our workshop about water (blue bead)! Each week the kids are suppose... suppose to.... return wearing their bracelets so that they remember what we learned about previously and what they have to look forward to in the upcoming weeks!


Nothing excites me more than sharing a bit of information about agriculture with these students and watching their eyes light up! Some of these topics they have never heard about and they are so engaged in learning these new ideas. Although they are not farmers or will never move outside of the city, agriculture is all around them. They just aren't always in tune with this realization. They are individuals that make an impact in society, and I want to encourage them to make decisions that will reap positive benefits. Every week I am encouraged to come back and make a positive difference in these students' lives. It's a refreshing atmosphere that reminds me why I aspire to become an Ag teacher!


       
 If you are interested in obtaining a copy of the lesson plan we developed for our agriculture bracelets feel free to shoot me a message!

Reaching Greater Heights

This thing called blogging is very new to me, but I am very excited to challenge myself and get plugged into this techno world in order to make awesome connections with others and expand my professional development! If you have any helpful tips for me about blogging, I would greatly appreciate them!

This week I was especially challenged to blog and share my experience as a Agricultural Educator. First off, I should mention that I am working as an intern for the 4H Extension office this summer. For those who are unsure of what 4H is..... well you came to the right place because I would be delighted to tell you! 4H is a youth development program that encourages kids in the ways of Agriculture. This extension program teaches kids a variety of skills and exposes them to the numerous opportunities that agriculture has to offer. Animal science, plant science, environmental science, and ag mechanics, are only a few of the opportunities that kids can get involved with. 4H also encourages the growth of kid's professional and leadership skills. My favorite thing about the 4H educational program is that it strongly believes in learning by doing. This means that the kids aren't sitting behind a desk receiving information but rather getting involved in their learning through hands on activities.The impacting stories I have heard from kids about how 4H has so greatly influenced their lives are incredible. Some of them have brought me to tears and it makes me proud to be a part of this organization that positively influences our future generation.

 This summer so far has been an incredible journey (tis why I tilted this blog "Adventures in Agriculture"). Each day is an adventure. I get the opportunity to go out in the community, meet some pretty awesome people, and share about agriculture. As I mentioned before, this past week especially inspired me to start my blog and share these experiences!

By now you're probably thinking "just tell me already what was so awesome that you did this past week!" Well I am about to break the suspense! So this past week our group of 4H educators started up our summer urban agricultural education program. In other words, we brought agriculture to the city. Each week a group of students belonging to a summer school program come to our garden in the city and tend to it. This was the first week, so we started by simply pulling weeds, watering, cleaning up, and even picking some of the vegetables that we had previously planted. There are currently three garden plots with a variety of vegetables in each. There is an almost finished greenhouse and they are working on putting together a water barrel irrigation system! There are also a few raised bed gardens which are designed for students in wheelchairs in order to create an equal learning environment for every student. There are some really awesome things happening here and I am excited to see what the rest of the summer has in store for us!

I almost forget my absolute favorite part about this garden center! While we were there this past week a group of contractors stopped in to discuss "business." I wasn't sure why they were there until I asked the director what they were discussing. I discovered that they were planning on pouring a concrete pad for the start of the center's outdoor classroom! It will be set up just like a regular classroom but with no walls. Currently the students walk a few blocks from the school to get to the garden. Not only will it be more convenient for the students to get to, but more importantly it will give instructors the opportunity to hold lessons outside, right beside the garden. Teachers can utilize this space to conduct workshops and maximize their teaching abilities in new environments. Everybody was over joyed at the advances that were being made. Seeing agriculture impacting people in unlikely places was most definitely the highlight of my day!

Here are a few pictures to start out with but I promise better ones are coming :)