Ag educators use variety of methods to teach about farming Prince William teacher cultivates ag experiences for suburban students BY ADAM CULLER
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eaching agriculture to Brentsville District High School students who know little about farming is a challenge Amy Beard is happy to undertake. Located in the suburban sprawl of Northern Virginia, the Prince William County school has few students with traditional farming backgrounds. Among those with some agricultural experience, the extent typically is raising backyard chickens or growing a small vegetable garden. Beard, a Manassas native, grew up working on her grandparents’ farm in Highland County and continues to work on her family’s Dusty Lane Farm in Nokesville. As the high school horticulture instructor, she’s using those experiences to connect students to agriculture in a community where farming activities are a rarity. “We have a lot of students who don’t have any experience at all,” Beard said. “It’s a good challenge, because we’re able to open these kids’ minds to all the possibilities agriculture holds,” she explained. “It’s amazing when they see those possibilities and realize they can do something in agriculture even if they never thought in a million years they could.” Horticulture classes are an elective available to all students at Brentsville, which also offers turfgrass management classes. Beard’s students are responsible for everything grown in the school’s greenhouse and raised beds, learning primarily about plant science and small-scale farming. Beard said she wants students to learn how to grow food for their own families on small plots, so she teaches them vertical gardening and companion planting techniques. Her main goal, she said, is to help students understand the importance of agriculture and recognize that even the smallest operations play a crucial role. “We don’t all have 100 acres at home,” Beard said. “If we only have half an acre, it’s all about what we can do with that half-acre. It’s definitely important— especially in our area where available land is starting to get smaller and smaller— to realize all the ways we can contribute in our community.”
Amy Beard's students are responsible for the school's greenhouse and raised bed gardens.
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VIRGINIA FARM BUREAU NEWS
Agriculture class provides crosscurriculum connections BY ALICE KEMP
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hen students enter Jennifer Bowry’s agriculture class at Powhatan County Middle School, she typically hears, “Oh, this is the class with rabbits,” or “Oh, so we’re just going to grow stuff and look at a chicken.” But it’s so much more. Under a well-rounded agriscience curriculum, Bowry’s seventh and eighth graders learn real-life applications of what they’re taught in school. These include exercising math skills for woodshop projects, and learning about cellular respiration and photosynthesis while growing plants. “They’ll start telling me, ‘Wow we just did that in math class’ or ‘Hey, we’re doing that in science.’ It’s really important to me that they find that connection with the other things they’re doing,” Bowry explained. While the Powhatan native has taught agriculture for over 10 years, Bowry didn’t grow up with a farming background. Her family had a garden, but she wasn’t immersed in agriculture until she took her first agriculture class in high school. “I was hooked,” she reminisced. “I took ag my entire high school career. If it was available, and it fit in my schedule, I took it.”
