Welcome 2018-2019 Agricultural Science Students!

Welcome 2018-2019 Agricultural Science Students!

Welcome

I am happy to welcome new students and those returning. I am looking forward to an excellent and inspiring year. I know our students will have a great year just like last year.  I will be periodically adding new posts to this blog through the year so that parents and others can see what students are learning. 

Pumpkins

We worked very hard just before last school year ended to plant what we thought were deer resistant plants for the purpose of raising funds from the pumpkins and zinnias. The deer nibbled away on the zinnia leaves and flowers, and pumpkins were reduced by deer and a leaf fungus.  Because of the damage we will have nothing to harvest.

We also threw a rotten cheese pumpkin in our compost pile before the school year ended.  Our compost pile is located inside a fence. Seeds from the rotten cheese pumpkins germinated and we have three large pumpkins which we are finding a productive way to use.  We are open to ideas so post a comment below if you want to share! 

I learned one very important from this: deer do not eat plants behind tall fences. We will be exploring the option of adding a fence around out garden space so we can keep animals from damaging our crops.  

Started Seed

We are blessed to have so much growing space with heat.  Plants we have grown in the greenhouse have been given to the Culinary Arts program. We started seed for about 700 lettuce plants and 20 cherry tomatoes.  We will likely run a growing tests on our lettuce and tomatoes.  We have made much progress on learning how to make lettuce thrive; but, we have much to learn for growing tomatoes!
Currently we have about 160 lettuce plants in their growing containers and we have plenty left to transplant. 

Beginning FFA Career Development Event preparation

New Jersey FFA (formerly Future Farmer's of America) will organize four events/ competitions this November to be hosted at Rutgers New Brunswick.  These events will be in Fruit and Vegetable Identification, Land Judging, Milk Products and Processing, and Turfgrass Management. Student from our program have earned 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places in the state and Rutgers Undergraduate Turfgrass program scholarships totaling $4,000.  Looking forward to preparing students for these events and seeing them do well. Students placing in the top three of any event are recognized by NJ FFA on stage with an award that sometimes includes cash prize. Students placing demonstrate technical skills they may apply in a future college program or career.   
Several students will be attending the FFA LEAD conference to learn leadership skills and get inspired and energized for the this school year.  Last year our officer team that attended brought home the only awards given out for Outstanding Officer Team and Outstanding Greenhand.

SAE's

Agricultural education programs are designed to utilize three aspects of learning to make learning a comprehensive system for students.  The three aspects are 1) Classroom Instruction, 2) FFA (leadership), 3) Supervised Agriculture Experience (SAE) which are projects either out of class or school based.  With SAE's, students are given an opportunity to learn a specific area which they are interested in such as: animal or plant biology, environmental science, social systems of agriculture, and even exploring agricultural careers. SAE's are a way for students to explore career options (Exploratory SAE) and when they ready to move on they can learn skills by having employment (Placement SAE), owning and operating a small business (Entrepreneurship SAE), or answering a scientific question using research (Research SAE).

Students can earn awards for their SAE projects, they can earn honorary FFA degrees, and even earn grants to improve and expand their SAE projects. In order to take advantage of the SAE benefits, students must make a plan and keep formal records.  Students being enrolled in our Agricultural Science program have free access to an online SAE record keeping system (AET click here to see the site and explore).  First year students in the program have started to complete their profile. Returning students have SAE's already recorded in their AET account and have earned at least one honorary FFA degree.

I am hopeful that by educating student families, students will then be encouraged to keep records of their out of class projects and earn more awards and degrees. Their are students in the program which have chores or projects they are doing at home and have excellent SAE projects that have not been recorded or formalized to earn awards and degrees. Please help me in encouraging our students in making SAE's and record keeping part of their routine and earn some well deserved recognition! Post a comment below or write me an email (mr.fargo@scvths.net) to learn more.

Have a great week!
Mr. Fargo

Award Winning Projects, Eggstraction, and Experience from Outside the Classroom

Award Winning Projects and Experience from Outside the Classroom

Award Winning Projects

Students have been caring for chickens since late March.  These are egg laying hens that have begun to lay on a more consistent schedule.  We are collecting about six eggs a day from eight hens. Students are maintaining the chickens prior to class starting in the morning, in the afternoon, and during weekends. Students are learning planning and record keeping skills while they do this project and FFA degrees and other recognition. Student also learn how to use our egg cleaner and can bring eggs home after they have been clean

Eggstraction

Animal and Plant Biotechnology students have been working on a science fair project for several weeks.  Seen above and below are photos of one student's project investigating the best procedure for harvesting a chicken egg blastodisc.  The student discovered that using packing tape is helpful in keeping the egg shell together while puncturing and and cutting the shell open.

Other students are completing projects on different topics such as: the performance of E10 versus E85 gasoline, Does fish scale and skin coloration influence the presence of microscopic parasites, Is there a difference in egg production between pastured chickens and chickens with a choice of feed or pasture, and how does social media play a part in educating teens about genetically modified organisms.

Experience from Outside the Classroom

 

Martenette Farms visited the classroom for both morning and afternoon to educate students on lamb birth, honey bee colony establishment and maintenance, and assisting in transplanting vegetable and herb crops for their organic CSA farm.

Noble Mushrooms came in for two afternoon visits to teach students about nutrient benefits, how to start mushroom growing bags, and how to perform the sterile culture of starting new mushrooms.

February and March 2018

February and March 2018

NJ FFA gives students an opportunity to learn career skills and leadership. NJ FFA organizes an event to coincide with National FFA Week each year.  This event is called Advocacy and Legislative Leadership Day.  Students walked through a job and college fair while grabbing breakfast snack and coffee, they then listened to a panel of agriculture industry experts explaining the breadth, far reaching tentacles, and technology immersion, they participated in two leadership breakout sessions, and finally several student attendees volunteered to speak in front of all attendees and report on their group's learning activities. Our FFA Vice President Abby Podejko shared her story with the crowd.

A Certified Veterinary Technician from Zoetis visited our program on March 6th. She provided lessons in dog (canine) history and taxonomy, parasitology, and how to perform parasite identification of animal fecal material.  She brought enthusiasm and delivered the lessons in an entertaining way.  Thank you so much Mrs. Abel!

Clean up crew, 5 students spent an hour cleaning up garbage from SCVTHS grounds. It sleeted on us for about half the time, and it was cold.  But it was good for building character. We gathered three large bags and one old spare car wheel. It was about 50 lbs of garbage collected.

Bacterial ID 

A student has been working on learning sterile technique for establishing and maintaining cultures. She has also taught peers how to perform sterile culture. She is now working on working on a science fair project to categorize bacterial cultures using a staining procedure. Here she is flaming a microscope slide to prior to applying the stain. She hopes to enter her work in the NJ State FFA Agriscience Fair competition. 

Oil Eating Microbes

Oil eating microbes are bacteria which digest and breakdown oils to become less harmful substances such as methane gas. Oils are released naturally from various sources and these oil eating microbes recycle oil.  Oils are also sometimes released from human activity and a variety of methods are used to control the oil from doing damage to wildlife, microbes, and their environment as well. Oil eating microbes can also be commercially engineered and produced to combat accidental oil spills. Two seniors are working to answer a question of when naturally occurring oil eating microbes can catch the population of commercially produced oil eating microbes. These students have completed their first trial and will complete a second trial after spring break. They are working with a mathematics professor from William Paterson University to analyze their data. They will communicate their findings in a research paper, a poster, and share their new knowledge with stakeholders.  

Serious Science

Serious Science

Animal & Plant Biotech

The Biotech Students began an animal science unit this week.  In the picture to the left and below, students are performing an Enzyme Linked Immunosorbant Assay (ELISA) to detect presence of disease.  The cells in the microwell strip which tuned blue indicate the presence of the "disease".  

Research & Development

The Research and Development students are running a pilot study to trial the ability to quantify microbes.  These students are working to answer a question with Oil Eating Microbes (OEM's) on controlling oil spills in water. One of the ways we hope to measure the OEM's preference to variable conditions is to count the number of OEM colonies growing on a media plate.  Pictured below, students are testing a serial dilution procedure so the we can count the OEM colonies and estimate the preference.                                                          

Plant Science

Plant Science students are working through a unit where they learn about environmental conditions that support plant growth: water, nutrients, temperature, and light.  In the photo to the right, students are gathering data from an experiment on how light impacts plant growth or phototropism.

Investigations, Communication, and Open House

Investigations, Communication, and Open House

Open House

Both morning and afternoon students have been busy transplanting roughly 350 lettuce plants in preparation for Open House.  Once the lettuce is ready for harvest, we will cut it and share with Culinary Arts here at SCVTHS. A good rule that the Culinary Arts Instructor shared with us is that each one gallon sized zip top bag contains enough lettuce for ten small salads.  We will record how much lettuce we harvest and share and hope to meet, or go beyond, prior years in harvesting.  

Investigations - FANR, Plant Science, Research & Development

Intro to Food, Agriculture, and Natural Resources students performed an investigation to determine how wind impacts plant cell hydration and the plant's ability to maintain upright structure.  Students set up the experiment on a Friday, collected plant height data (measured height with a ruler) for the first 20 minutes, and then one last collection 72 hours later.  Students then wrote a lab report and used the lab report info to produce what we call a mini-poster.  The Mini-poster is a tool I am using to get students familiar with the process of presenting and communicating their findings with others. I hope to have all student posters displayed for Open House.  

Plant Science students recently performed an experiment to test impacts environment has on a plants use of water to maintain itself.  They used a more powerful tool to measure the water use: a gas pressure sensor.  When water exits the leaf, it creates a vacuum pressure which students could measure with this sensor and data was recorded on a data logging device.  After the experiment was complete, students used the data logger to process the data (math operation) and determine an equation for a linear regression and line slope.  The line slope value was then used to compare the rate of water loss with a control.

Communication

In the photo below, a student is creating a mini-poster using info created in the lab report.

Animal & Plant Biotech

Animal and Plant Biotech students are currently learning the processes for introducing novel DNA into a plant using genetic transformation.  One the of the processes they are also working on sterile plant tissue culture.  In the photo below students have cultured a fern.  Biotech students are establishing sterile carrot cultures in class this week.  The hope will be for students to turn a small carrot piece into a whole plant again. 

Agriculture Research and Development

Students in the R&D class have chosen to explore methods of controlling oil spills in water using microbes to clean the water by converting the oil to less harmful hydrocarbons, such as methane.  In the photo below, a student in is preparing to culture the oil eating microbes.  After culturing students will then count the number of microbe colonies and determine which condition the microbes thrive and reproduce in.  This is a pilot study that they will use to amplify the experiment.

The Micro World

The Micro World

FANR

Our Year One, Intro to Food, Agriculture, and Natural Resources (FANR) students learned proper wet mount slide creation procedures and microscope operation.  Materials they used were thread and onion skin.  Their goal was to illustrate and identify an onion cell nucleus.  In the photo to the lower right, I was able to snap a photo of one student slide pointing at a nucleus.

In another activity, FANR student learned how to extract DNA from strawberry fruit.  They also learned what the physical and chemical methods  are for separating DNA from other cellular contents.  All students were able successfully extract DNA from their fruit.  You may have noticed they brought a tube home containing the DNA.

Animal & Plant Biotechnology

Biotech students learned how to use their previously learned sterile culture skills and added new skills to this set to include sterile culture of plant tissues: Plant Tissue Culture.  This is a valuable and powerful way to grow and rapidly multiply plant tissues to create whole plants.  Its also a technique that is essential for improving plant genetics involving the introduction of novel traits.  Pictured to the left is a fern plant the was divided/cut with a scalpel and cultured on new growth media to include fresh nutrients.  This fern tissue has been in culture for approximately 4 years.

 Research & Development 

Our students in this class have been working hard learning how to effectively locate published information and write a literature review for their project.  They plan to investigate natural breakdown of oils and dispersal agents to help answer questions about controlling oil spills.

FFA Career Development Event Prep

Students are seen here learning external animal anatomy in preparation for the NJ FFA Veterinary Science competition.  Students visited several posters to learn common features and concluded the lesson with a game / quiz testing their new skills.

Open House 2018

Please come visit the Agricultural Science program on February 3rd during our school wide Open House event.  This event is sued to recruit new students from 8th grade for our upcoming fall classes. Follow this link to learn more and register online.

Scientific Wreaths

Scientific Wreaths?  Well almost.

Students decorated wreaths as a fundraiser this past December and we even made a couple from scratch.  And yes, some of use have a hard time taking off our lab coat after our in class lab is complete.  We thank all those that supported our Somerset FFA Chapter in making a purchase.

Agriculture teachers are becoming harder to find.  There is a shortage of trained agriculture teachers in the U.S. and across the globe.  in 2016 there were roughly 57 ag teacher positions to fill in the northeast region according to NAAE's Teach Ag Campaign.

Two Students from Somerset Ag Science attended the NJ FFA Teach Ag Event held at Rutgers on a snowy Saturday in December. Students learned about the shortage of ag teachers, what the job requirements are, where to get the training, and some expert advice from current and past ag teachers.  Students attending also brought home some "Teach Ag Swag" a kit with t-shirt, portfolio, and other items to inspire students to pursue a degree in Agriculture Education. 

Our Biotech students recently completed a gene insertion project.  Students inserted a gene for bioluminescence taken from jellyfish and they inserted into a bacteria.  They then cultured the bacteria to produce the bioluminescent protein, extracted the protein from the bacteria, and purified the protein as is shown below.

We also used some sidewalk chalk to review the steps and procedures of this long process.

Recruiting new students is an important part of maintaining a program.  Bottom line is, the best way to recruit is to have great support and have students do the talking for you.  Very simple, but very, very true!  Thank you everyone!

Our first year students in our Intro to Food, Agriculture, and Natural Resources (FANR) class, completed a unit where they learned about water quality and maintaining the quality.  Seen below here the students are performing an activity exploring point source and non-point source pollution and how topography impacts pollutant movement.

One the goals of our ambitious FFA chapter this year is to reach a goal of logging 200 hours of community service through planned events.  So far about five students have participated and logged about 70 hours.  Once the goal of 200 hours is met, by March 30th, our chapter can apply for and earn recognition for dedicating our time, service, and talents to others that need support.  Please watch for announcements of future community service activities and help us reach our goal! Below are several students participating in an Operation Shoebox event in December.