The BIG reveal: For approximately the next year, I will be working with Mrs. Carly-Jean Rippole and the Derry Area High School Agriculture Program.
This summer I will have four discussions with my cooperating teacher and pandemic-permitting, I will visit the facilities in-person by the end of the summer.
My discussion for May was focused on the facilities and spaces within the Ag Building that support the Agriculture Education curriculum at Derry Area High School. I have taken my discussion with Mrs. Rippole and condensed it into 3 main takeaways. I will elaborate on these takeaways in the following paragraphs but a short summary can be found as the infographic within this post.
The Derry Area High School Agriculture Education Program has SO MANY SPACES. The program is housed in its own building, separate from the main high school building and it includes a floral lab, food science lab, CASE lab, and an agriculture mechanics shop. In addition, they have not one, but two greenhouses. One of which is the largest greenhouse at an Agricultural Education program in Pennsylvania. Off to the side of the Ag Building is a pole building the students refer to as "the barn". Here students can lease pens for their supervised agricultural experience (SAE) projects. This facility houses chickens, rabbits, and pigs.
As far as maintaining these facilities and spaces so that they are safe for student and community use, Mrs. Rippole tells me that they were audited within the last year so everything is up-to-date. Many lab facilities include eyewash stations and the agriculture mechanics shop has the proper signage, caution tape, and floor markings. The greenhouses are even handicap/wheelchair accessible!
The agriculture facilities at Derry Area High School are open to the community, students, and their families. Students who lease a pen in the barn get a key so that they are able to feed and care for their animals daily. They do not need special permission to access this facility other than having a lease agreement with the Agriculture Department and its teachers. Additionally, the facilities are open to community groups like the Derry FFA Alumni and Westmoreland County 4-H clubs who regularly hold meetings in the classroom spaces.
Lastly, Mrs. Rippole expressed one disadvantage to having so many facilities, labs, and spaces is supervising 20-30 students at a time. For example, there could be 5 students in the floral lab, one feeding their chicken in the barn, and the rest of the students working in the classroom. Understandably, Mrs. Rippole says that it is difficult to be in three places at once and have eyes on every student. Furthermore, because the Ag Building is a separate building from the main high school building if there is a behavior concern that requires attention from the principal's office or a student is stung by a bee and needs to see the nurse, help is about 5 minutes away.
Mrs. Rippole also expressed her concerns about students who feed their animals before or after school hours when there is not an adult present on the facilities. She would like to see a security camera installed to fix this issue. We talked about working together to write a grant for a security camera as a part of my student teaching experience.
As I am looking ahead to my student teaching experience, I think about the concerns Mrs. Rippole expressed and how I would handle those situations. I know that I will need to establish a good relationship with my students so that I can trust them to be in facilities and spaces by themselves for a short period of time. Additionally, it will be important to have the phone numbers of the main office and nurse's office handy in case of emergencies.
Stay tuned for part two of my summer discussion series. The topic for June is FFA!
This summer I will have four discussions with my cooperating teacher and pandemic-permitting, I will visit the facilities in-person by the end of the summer.
My discussion for May was focused on the facilities and spaces within the Ag Building that support the Agriculture Education curriculum at Derry Area High School. I have taken my discussion with Mrs. Rippole and condensed it into 3 main takeaways. I will elaborate on these takeaways in the following paragraphs but a short summary can be found as the infographic within this post.
The Derry Area High School Agriculture Education Program has SO MANY SPACES. The program is housed in its own building, separate from the main high school building and it includes a floral lab, food science lab, CASE lab, and an agriculture mechanics shop. In addition, they have not one, but two greenhouses. One of which is the largest greenhouse at an Agricultural Education program in Pennsylvania. Off to the side of the Ag Building is a pole building the students refer to as "the barn". Here students can lease pens for their supervised agricultural experience (SAE) projects. This facility houses chickens, rabbits, and pigs.
As far as maintaining these facilities and spaces so that they are safe for student and community use, Mrs. Rippole tells me that they were audited within the last year so everything is up-to-date. Many lab facilities include eyewash stations and the agriculture mechanics shop has the proper signage, caution tape, and floor markings. The greenhouses are even handicap/wheelchair accessible!The agriculture facilities at Derry Area High School are open to the community, students, and their families. Students who lease a pen in the barn get a key so that they are able to feed and care for their animals daily. They do not need special permission to access this facility other than having a lease agreement with the Agriculture Department and its teachers. Additionally, the facilities are open to community groups like the Derry FFA Alumni and Westmoreland County 4-H clubs who regularly hold meetings in the classroom spaces.
Lastly, Mrs. Rippole expressed one disadvantage to having so many facilities, labs, and spaces is supervising 20-30 students at a time. For example, there could be 5 students in the floral lab, one feeding their chicken in the barn, and the rest of the students working in the classroom. Understandably, Mrs. Rippole says that it is difficult to be in three places at once and have eyes on every student. Furthermore, because the Ag Building is a separate building from the main high school building if there is a behavior concern that requires attention from the principal's office or a student is stung by a bee and needs to see the nurse, help is about 5 minutes away.
Mrs. Rippole also expressed her concerns about students who feed their animals before or after school hours when there is not an adult present on the facilities. She would like to see a security camera installed to fix this issue. We talked about working together to write a grant for a security camera as a part of my student teaching experience.
As I am looking ahead to my student teaching experience, I think about the concerns Mrs. Rippole expressed and how I would handle those situations. I know that I will need to establish a good relationship with my students so that I can trust them to be in facilities and spaces by themselves for a short period of time. Additionally, it will be important to have the phone numbers of the main office and nurse's office handy in case of emergencies.
Stay tuned for part two of my summer discussion series. The topic for June is FFA!
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