By Rich Larson
The Caledonia Agriscience Education and FFA activities continue to be more hands-on and engaging for our Caledonia area students. Those areas of focus are within the Agribusiness Systems, Animal Sciences, Environmental Services, Food Products and Processing, Natural Resources Systems, Plant Systems and Power, Structural and Technical Systems. Our middle school students had the opportunity to take what they learned in the classroom on the road to compete against other students from across Region 8.
Highlights of some of the activities within our classes are: 8th Grade Ag Tech have touched on numerous Agriculture, Rood and Natural Resouces (AFNR) topics and participated in the PEM Ag Challenge where they had 19 of the top 40 individuals in a competition of over 1,000 Region 8 students. They also did a food processing lab and created CO2 cars and bird houses. The Fish & Wildlife class competed at the Lanesboro Invitational, toured the State Fish Hatchery in Peterson, Met with the local DNR game warden and built custom fishing poles. Meat Science covered production, grading and identification and safety as well as toured Stinson’s Country Meats in Houston where they processed a hog and venison. Food Production & Processing covered farm to table for numerous products and spent time on the FFA garden. They canned, pickled, fermented and dehydrated garden products. Companion Animal/Vet Science went through the care and handling of the different pets as well as focused on their veterinary care. They also received a presentation from Sweet Dreams Pet Cremation and competed in the R-P Invitational.
The SAE program provides our students the opportunity to develop their Agriscience careers by getting released from school to explore and develop their interests in desired AFNR career pathways so that they can develop a firm grip on what their future career will be after high school. The total number of students enrolled in Caledonia’s AFNR courses for first and second semester continues to increase, enabling our school to employ an additional instructor this school year.
A few of the FFA activities that our members have taken part in are Fall Leadership Conference held at RCTC, the Miller Invitational General Livestock CDE at Mabel, the Stewartville Invite General Livestock and Dairy CDE, the PEM Jr High Ag Challenge held at Elgin, the Region 8 Dairy Cattle, General Livestock and Horse CDE held at UWRF, the Fish & Wildlife Invitational at Lanesboro, the Ag Mechanics and Small Animal CDEs and held at Rushford-Peterson, and the Winter Leadership Contest held at Riverland Technical College in Austin, in which Leo Privet and Tyler Hoscheit interviewed for their State FFA Degree.
Major FFA events included the annual fruit and puffin fundraising sale, Regional Awards Banquet, State and National Convention, State Leadership Conference for Chapter Leaders, numerous Career Development Events, Leadership Development Events, Houston County Ag Olympics hosted by the Houston County Farm Bureau, and the FFA garden at school. Our Chapter also has plans to install our apple orchard with drip irrigation into our garden this summer.
The Caledonia Area FFA would like to thank our local communities for their continued support throughout the year and invite our community members to call upon us for any community service opportunities they may have for us.