Cultivating Curiosity with Ms. Cusate

Last Fall, #PSUAgEd23 had the opportunity to attend the Northern Region PAAE meeting as a cohort. I was glad to go back to my home region and see so many familiar faces, since that is where I am from! However, as part of my student teaching internship, I had the chance to attend another regional PAAE meeting. This time, I attended the Western Region PAAE meeting with both the food science teacher, Mrs. Julie Schmidt and the PA FFA State Chaplin, Zaleigh Wade in Grove City, PA.  While we enjoyed dinner together, the regional officers gave reports on how the region is doing and updated members on upcoming events. They reported that the membership for both SLLC and ACES was at a record breaking high this year, with 615 members at ACES and 1,900 at ACES. We also heard updates about what The Commission for Agricultural Education Excellence is doing to help agriculture teachers in Pennsylvania.  Zaleigh, James, and Callie, three PA State FFA Officers, also hosted S.O.C.S. (State Off...

What was your favorite subject in high school? Mine was agriculture (obviously), but if I had to pick a core class, it would be science. It's no surprise though, because agriculture education and science go hand-in-hand. In fact, agriculture education is basically applied STEM education. Pretty cool, right? I loved Chemistry when I was in high school, so much so that I had a short stint in college as a Chemistry minor. However, I quickly realized that it would be significantly harder than I thought - but I still love that branch of science and learning about it! At Northwestern, we have a bunch of awesome science teachers, so imagine my excitement when I had the opportunity to observe not one, but TWO science teachers in our building!  First up was Dr. Cinda Murray, the Chemistry teacher at Northwestern. Dr. Murray is also engaged in the Global Learning in Agriculture (GLAG) Community with me, so we shared a common thread from the beginning. The GLAG Community was developed by the ...

Fridays...teachers love them. The weekend is coming, you get to wear jeans, you get to...visit Grace? This past Friday, that's exactly what I did. I took a trip to Selinsgrove Area High School to visit my cohort member, Grace Shawver! When I arrived to Selinsgrove Area High School, Grace met me in the office. I was really excited to see her program and meet her cooperating teacher, Mrs. Fry! I am from Bloomsburg, which is about 40 minutes from Grace's school, so I was looking forward to seeing a program close to home but different than mine. Selinsgrove is on block scheduling and has 4 80 minute classes a day, while Northwestern has 8 45 minute periods. First up was Ag Foundations, where one of Ms. Shawver's students taught a lesson of agronomy for the Teach Ag Essay Contest!  Next was Horticulture, where we spent some time out in the greenhouse getting ready for the plant sale the first week of May.  The amazing selection of hanging baskets in the greenhouse! Later in the ...

It was November 2022 on the weekend before Thanksgiving break, and my cohort members and I were sitting on the couch watching The Voice while working on our lesson plans. Admittedly, I was watching more TV than working, because every time I looked down at my laptop I saw a blank lesson plan template and a tiny blinking curser.  "What do I know about skin? I only took one animal science course in college." I told one of my friends. I felt defeated. I didn't know what to teach because I didn't know much about the integumentary system. As the days rolled by, I knew I had to write some kind of lessons for Small Animal Science, so one day I sat down and wrote them. I emailed other agriculture teachers for resources, looked up various activities, and relied a good bit on the Cornell Vet Science curriculum. I thought to myself, "Even if I don't use these lessons in January, I still learned something about the integumentary system while researching to write them....

Earlier this week, six Albion FFA members had the opportunity to travel to the Pennsylvania FFA State Legislative Leadership Conference (SLLC) in Harrisburg, PA. There were approximately 630 other FFA members in attendance from across the state. During the three-day event, students learned about professionalism, developed interpersonal skills, and made friends along the way. On night one, students were split into groups to attend workshops about how to advocate for the agriculture industry and communicate effectively. They learned how to start conversations and proper table etiquette. Day two brought more excitement. Students were separated into two groups to emulate the minority and minority Caucasus and deliberated on different House Bills that are currently going through the Pennsylvania Senate. Then, both groups came together to discuss in the form of a mock trial, defending their stance and point of view. They were given a binder at the beginning of the conference with different ...

For my second SAE visit, I had the chance to visit Andy's SAE. Andy is a sophomore at Northwestern Senior High School who is currently serving as the Albion FFA Junior Treasurer. He is active within the agriculture education program and the FFA chapter, and always has a "can do" attitude towards all his assignments and officer tasks. Before visiting Andy, Mr. Honeycutt and I talked to him about a date and time that would work for him and his family so that we could come visit. Andy talks about his pigs in class often, so I knew he would be happy we took the time to come see his project. Andy's pigs are an entrepreneurship/ownership SAE where he is raising two pigs. He got the pigs when they were three months old. He has plans to butcher one of the pigs and use the money from the first pig to pay to have the second pig butchered as well. During our visit, we met with Andy's family members and they discussed the progress Andy has been making with his pigs and the tr...