SAE Scoping Visits

SAE: Supervised Agricultural Experience.  What I believe now is an essential part of the three circle model.  I knew this, did all the assignments in my teacher preparation classes, but now I am seeing the impacts in the community and in students.  I really like how Pequea Valley does SAE and how they encourage students to do an SAE and engage community members in building these.  We want to see the glorious SAEs that students have worked on all four years, but it also is important to build connections to build a powerful SAE program.  This semester I was able to engage with many community members scoping and evaluating SAEs, two of them being Plain and Fancy and Lanchester Farm Service.

Plain and Fancy

Plain and Fancy is a visit I was able to go on last year, but this time I was able to see the front end of this, the application process, the director and his expectations and the students ideas before they started.  The CEO of Plain and Fancy has a desire to hire two FFA members every year to plan and create a garden.  He has ideas and expectations, but the students get to choose to grow vegetables they can use in the restaurant and ones that are local to Lancaster County or unique varieties such as purple beans.  I am excited to see what our two new students come up with!

Lanchester Farms does not
mess around when it comes to bolts!

Lanchester Farm Service

Lanchester Farm Service is owned by one of the Pequea Valley advisory council members.  Lanchester Farm Service repairs and builds silo unloaders, across eastern Pennsylvania.  Recently I was able to tour Lanchester Farms and talk with the owner.  He mentioned the challenges he has finding hardworking and committed people, that can work hard, work with people and stay organized. He has offered to have one or two of our students shadow him this semester to see what it takes, but warned that they can't be afraid of dirt, and willing to crawl in a silo.  We are hoping to send two students out their for our intro to agricultural mechanics class.

Lasata Farms

I have wrote about them before but it is just such a cool place and a place we (well now Mr. Masser and Ms. VanSant as I am headed out soon) hope to place students.  What is neat about this placement is that Megan wants to have students that need a little extra help or a little extra care, she wants it not only to be a place of learning but a place of helping and healing as well.  Recently two students went to visit the farm to potentially work with the horses there.  There are also various landscaping, natural resources and building projects that could engage many students.

Ken's Gardens

One of our other advisory board members manages a well known greenhouse in Intercourse, PA just a few miles from the school.  Him and his wife have a son in our program and are active throughout the school community.  We visited with him and asked how we could partner.  Currently there is a freshman working there who will start there to then build on her other research SAE project in our greenhouse and prepare to be in charge of the garden at the Factory- it is neat how all of these are working together.

The Factory

I think of all the spots we have made connections with, this might be my favorite. The Factory serves our community and our students as an outreach and resource center.  This semester they invited us to visit their site to begin brainstorming how we can use a garden space they have available.  This space will continue to transition over time as a place for a class to work for part of the semester and a student or two to do an SAE throughout the fall, spring and summer.

Other SAE Updates:

Assisted a student in preparing a Small Gas Engine SAE where he has received the engine from his grandfather and is working with his dad to restore it, such a cool project especially because he is taking his knowledge from the Power Tech class to his SAE.
Another Ag Mechanics student is currently doing horseshoe art!  I am excited to receive the piece of art I ordered as a gift very soon!