Success!

Success!

Several Somerset FFA Chapter / Agricultural Science students submitted entries for the NJ FFA Horticulture Exposition that was held on March 15th. The Hort Expo is a New Jersey competition for all FFA Chapters to participate. Of the four Somerset entries submitted, three students won awards for their work. As seen below, Sara Benaglio won Second place in the Terrarium Class for her creation featuring a croton and Psuedobombax (pictured below, top in sequence). 

Also Placing well, was Abigail Podejko for her loose leaf romaine lettuce in the Sustainable Agriculture Class. She placed First in this class and was awarded both a First place ribbon and Plaque (see two photos in middle of sequence below). Abby's award winning lettuce was recently featured in the SCVTHS Tradewins restaurant.

And for the first time ever a Somerset student has won a Division! Maria Scarpantonio won First place for her Succulent and Cacti dish garden. There are three divisions in the Hort Expo: Live plants with roots, Fresh cut flower arrangements, and Permanent, or Silk arrangements. Of all the Live plants Classes, 22 of them, Maria's creation was deemed best of all.

Congratulations all you!

Sara's Terrarium, Second place ribbon not pictured.

 Abby's Lettuce with ribbon, plaque not pictured.

 Abby's Lettuce crop grown in a hydroponic Stacker System contributed by Norz Hill Farm of Hillsborough, NJ.

Maria's Succulent and Cacti dish garden with First place ribbon. Live Plant Divisional Winner Plaque not pictured.

As part of our effort to earn community service hours this year, we chose to once again clean up our SCVTHS campus. We opened the collection up other CTSO's (clubs) in the school. We were able to collect 159 pounds of debris from roughly 3 acres of land and roughly 45 hours total between Operation Shoebox events and cleaning the campus.

Our Research and Development students have been experimenting and collecting data over the past four weeks. They are almost finished with this phase. Below is some resistant bacteria created in the classroom which they tested against plant compounds impregnated onto filter discs. The filter discs on the left side of each petri plate show strong control over these resistant bacteria. Stay tuned for their results to be revealed.

Finally, we hosted a Science fair in February with great success. SCVTHS Agricultural Science students completed science fair projects in agricultural areas of animal science, plant science, food / nutritional science, environmental science, and power, structure, and technical systems. Students also helped plan, organize, and run the science fair utilizing leadership skills learned through our FFA chapter.  Students welcomed their parents, SCVTHS administration, faculty, board members, Agricultural Science program advisory committee members, and supporters, and Somerset County Freeholder Mr. Gallagher. Those in attendance were given a few minutes to explore the location and topic of each science fair project. Attendee groups cycled through each project after a welcome and introduction. Student presenters explained their experiment in four minutes and had two minutes to answer questions. The hope is to use this event as a recruiting tool in the future and bring awareness that there is a four-year agricultural science high school program offered in Somerset County. We have video footage we will be sharing before the school year closes.  Thank you all for all you contributed.