Minot Daily News SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 2018
Agriculture
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Project based learning at Dakota Memorial School By My classCHER room is a barnBAGGETT yard ... Dakota Memorial literally. There Title I teacher is hay, pine chips, heat lamps, chickens, our version of a barn & of course chicken poop. My name is Cher Baggett, I work for Minot Public School, and I teach Title I at Dakota Memorial School located on the Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch Campus in Minot. I have been tasked with teaching reading intervention and math intervention to students in grades 48. Having said that, my students’ current lesson has attracted the attention of not only the entire school, but also the entire DBGR organization including Minot, Bismarck and Fargo. I have had a plethora of tours and visitors in my classroom over the last couple weeks. Hatching chicks is an example of project-based learning. Projectbased learning is an engaging and complex task in which students actively explore and acquire deeper knowledge by doing something. For example, even though hatching chicks may seem like a science project, we have calculated the hatch rate (math), discussed who raises chicken, where they are raised, and various poultry related jobs (social studies), written two newsletters, haikus and cinquains (English), researched (reading) and are compiling a book of all information gained, for each student to take with them. The students have run the show from the beginning. The eggs begin
Submitted photos
in the incubators and they watched them develop for 21 days. They were aware that the temperature and humidity were critical, so they were in constant observation. The students documented the growth of the embryo for the entire twenty-one days, we took pictures of what they actually saw when they looked through the ova scope at the egg during development, and researched like crazy. Once day 20 arrived, the search for pips in the eggs began, and everything they had previously learned came to fruition. Keep in mind, they are writing about everything they see, hear, feel, discover and more. The students have also been “Barnyard Helpers.” Each student has had the opportunity to help maintain the brooder (including water, food, temperature and cleaning out the “living quarters”). Finally, my students are putting together books that include everything I have mentioned including their own personal journals of the events and the articles each of them have written for our “Barnyard Banter” newsletter! Learning can be and should be fun! The most beautiful thing about the chicks being in our classroom is many of the students have faced trauma in their young lives. Things most of us as adults could never imagine. The moments the students share with the baby chicks is precious. It is pure, simple and tender. Most of them would never have this opportunity to watch life begin and grow. They absolutely adore the chicks, and my greatest task is how to get them moving onto work from holding and loving the baby chicks!
MAIN: Chicks were hatched as part of a project-based learning assignment for stuCher Baggett is a Title I teacher dents at Dakota Memorial School. at Dakota Memorial School at TOP RIGHT: Cher Baggett, a Title I teacher at Dakota Memorial School on the Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch. Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch.
Since Bill Gross, a native of North Dakota, started Farm Rescue more than a decade ago, the organization has assisted over 500 farm and ranch families. Farm Rescue’s current service area includes the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska and eastern Montana. Submitted Photo
Farm Rescue helps farmers & ranchers in need
By FARM RESCUE
Bill Gross, a native of North Dakota and full-time pilot for UPS Airlines, decided he wanted to help farm families in need.
Like so many farm boys before him, his heart had never left his family’s farm and ranch at Cleveland, N.D. And like so many other farm families, his parents encouraged him to leave that farm in pursuit of a better life. But from a bird’s eye view, flying back and forth across our nation at 40,000 feet, Gross kept looking at the farms below. The changing demographics of rural America – fewer farms, fewer children per family, fewer neighbors – troubled him. And always in the back of his mind, he remembered his father’s concern about what would happen to their farm
should anything debilitating happen. On a long flight over the Pacific Ocean one day, when one of Gross’ co-pilots asked him what he was going to do when he retired, he didn’t hesitate: “I’m going to be this Good Samaritan that buys a tractor and goes around and helps farm families plant their crops.” That generated some laughter until his coworker realized Gross was serious. “Well, why wait until you retire?” he challenged. Since Gross launched Farm Rescue more than a decade ago, the organization has assisted more than 500 farm and ranch families. Farm Rescue’s current service area includes the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska and eastern Montana. Farm Rescue provides planting, haying, harvesting, livestock feeding assistance and commodity and hay hauling to farm and ranch families that have experienced a major injury, illness or natural disaster. Its mission is to help family farms bridge crises so they have an opportunity to continue viable operations. See RESCUE — Page 2