FARM BUSINESS PROFILE: Southern High School CASE Program/FFA

March 1, 2018

This month’s agricultural business profile features the Southern High School CASE Program and FFA group. We spoke with co-Presidents, Ann Henry and Sophie Chance, and Junior Advisor, Justin Tice.

We sat down with Southern High School’s FFA Co-Presidents, Ann Henry and Sophie Chance, and Junior Advisor, Justin Tice, to learn more about the Curriculum for Agriculture Science Education (CASE)/FFA Program at Southern High School. 

Q1: Tell us a little about your capstone project

Ann: Throughout the years, we have had a decline in enrollment from freshman in the Ag program. Our capstone project has been to increase enrollment in those classes for all students but mainly for incoming freshmen. As part of this project, we have done surveys (which we are still calculating data on) to find out how many kids actually know about our program and all that it entails. We have been working on promotion skills and trying to reach out to communities, talking with professionals and getting in touch with all the kids in the Ag classes. We are just trying to promote what we are doing with Ag.

Q2: Tell us about FFA?

Sophie: FFA is an organization built on leadership and agriculture for kids throughout high school, even before that and after that. It is a national organization and it is really for outreach and leadership skills, and to promote agriculture to kids throughout the US.

Does it stand for anything?

Sophie: It stands for Future Farmers of America but we became the National FFA Organization in 1989 instead of FFA because it is not just for farmers. It was originally created for male farmers but the program has grown and is no longer limited to farmers. It is more of a symbol that the program kept.

Q3: Here at Southern, the CASE Program is offered, which is a very rigorous & relevant sequence of courses designed to challenge students and help engage active participation. It is also a 4-year completer program – Can you tell us a little more about that?

Ann: Through the CASE program, there are five classes offered. To complete the program, you need to have four out of the five credits. As a freshman, you would start out in the intro class, which introduces you to natural resources, animal & plant science. It covers the basics of the program. Sophomore year you ideally would take animal or plant science or you can double up and take both. Sophie and I took both classes during our sophomore year. The plant science and animal science classes are very hands on. This is something we are really trying to promote; they are also honors classes. With our plant science class, we have the greenhouse. Junior year, you would take the animal and plant biotechnology class which correlates with AP Bio; a lot of the curriculum is the same but instead of human based its more plant and animal based. Senior year is the capstone and research project – which is our enrollment project.

Q4: Can you talk about the three circles of Ag education that CASE incorporates?

FFA, SAE, Classroom

Sophie: As a student in the Ag classes and taking FFA, there are many components to that. For the classroom segment: is a class built in to your typical schedule so you are able to learn more about agriculture and get the educational component of it. FFA is more of the leadership aspect and really getting to know other people in the community, the state and country that are involved in agriculture. This includes learning public speaking skills, how to run a meeting and so on. To bring it all together, we have the SAE, which is your Supervised Agricultural Experience. This is where you find an internship or another way to be involved in agriculture and you track or journal your experience. It may be something you want to pursue as a career or something that gets you more involved and really inspires more kids to be involved in agriculture- whether it be shadowing a vet or raising chickens and beef.

Justin: I just completed an SAE, which was working on a meat farm. I kept a log of my hours for everyday that I worked and I included resources needed, equipment needed, contacts needed for supplies. It is then submitted to our teacher for grading.

Ann: I work at Muddy Creek Animal Hospital as a veterinary technician. I started as an intern my junior year so that has been my SAE. Before that, I raised chickens as an SAE. At Muddy Creek, I worked my way up from an intern to an employee, which is following the career path I have chosen.

Sophie: My SAE starting freshman year, I received a 2-year-old unbroken mare that I eventually trained over the last 3 years and I offered riding lessons for children. I recently gave her away to a 10-year-old who now shows her. Last year, I started a second SAE, which was teaching pony riding to children 8 years and younger. I teach two classes which includes posting, how to trot, how to guide and basic safety things around a horse.

Q5: If you take these classes here at Southern, do you have to go into agriculture? Can they help you in other areas of your life?

Sophie: There are tons of opportunities that you can go into involving agriculture that are not necessarily farming. That includes being a doctor, a lawyer- really any of these classes can benefit you whether its science related, food related, statistics, engineering. Many of the kids enjoy the classes and enjoy the content whether or not they plan to choose a career path in Agriculture. These classes can help prepare you for 180+ different career paths requiring various levels of degrees.

Q6: Are all of you going into Ag after you graduate high school?

Justin: I am still figuring it out. I have different things I want to do. But I am taking the Ag classes to see if this is something I want to do. I can always use it as a back-up plan if my chosen career path doesn’t work out for me.

Q7: What are some of the competition events that you have done through FFA?

Sophie: Ann and I can both speak on this. Starting my freshman year, I competed in creed speaking which is basically the FFA motto that you memorize and I was able to go to Nationals with that. That inspired me to speak the next two years; I did prepared public speaking on agricultural issues and I won at the State level with my speeches. I spoke on horseshoe crab depopulation and expansion of desserts, which is desertification. I was able to meet a lot of people and network through that experience.

Ann: my main focus has been veterinary science so I was on the Vet Science team and I competed in FFA knowledge bowl my freshman year. It is a lot of curriculum for the vet science team but it plays into my job and what I want to do career wise. So having that knowledge from being on the team really plays a role in my job.

Q8: Looking back, what was the most rewarding thing about being involved in the Ag program? What are you hoping to get out of the Ag program?

Justin: I am hoping to get basic life skills that everyone needs and agriculture related things that I could apply should I decide to get an agriculture degree.

Sophie: The most important thing for me was just becoming involved in agriculture. It wasn’t where I started out at all and it just opened a ton of doors through FFA, Farm Bureau, and all the people I’ve met and now my college and career path and even public speaking gave me so many opportunities that I may not have otherwise had.

To learn more about the CASE program visit their website by clicking here.

To learn more about Southern  High School’s Agriculture Program, click here.

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