New high school ag programs sprout in Sterling, Dixon amid growing student interest

DIXON — Dixon High School was a busy place in early June as construction workers renovated the Career and Technical Education wing and added a classroom for its new agriculture program, something it hasn’t offered for 34 years.

Meanwhile, Sterling Public Schools’ administration was preparing for the 2024-2025 school year by hiring an additional agriculture teacher and securing an extra plot of farmland for its students to utilize as a lab.

Both districts’ growing attention to ag offerings has been spurred by two things, teachers say: the hands-on nature of ag programs and the lessons students can directly apply to their own lives.

“Compared to a lot of the other classes that they sit in, ours are just a lot more hands on. I mean, across the scope of classes that we teach, we do a lot of different labs, our students are in the shop, wiring, schematics, things like that,” SHS agriculture teacher Meg Stanley said in an interview with Shaw Local.

Miranda Moen, Dixon High School’s agriculture teacher, agrees the hands-on nature of the classes grab the students’ attention. That’s not to say other classes are boring, Moen said. For example, a high school biology class can be very hands on, but in a different way.

She gave an example from DHS’s horticulture class - which is also taught at Sterling - where students will be growing their own plants in the school’s greenhouse.

In class they will learn about the different parts of the plant and how they function together. With that knowledge they’ll go out to the greenhouse and be able to understand what’s happening to the plant as it’s growing.

Then they’ll move on to nutrient deficiencies and pests. Out in the greenhouse, they’ll be able to see what is affecting the plant and determine if it’s harming the plant’s new or old growth. Then they can figure out what they need to do to help the plant and watch it continue to grow.

“So it’s direct application right away rather than like ‘Oh, if you go into this career, you would use this.’ We’re using it here and now,” Moen said.

At Dixon High School

DHS hasn’t offered agriculture classes since 1986 and those facilities hadn’t been renovated since 1959.

Administrators were hoping the renovations would spark student interest in the trades or do a better job at providing that knowledge if they’re already interested.

To start the 2024-25 school year, the new agriculture classroom was completed with an entryway leading outside to the school’s greenhouse and Moen was hired to teach the three agriculture courses - intro to agriculture, animal science and horticulture.

With about 90 students enrolled, it’s been “chaos and madness,” Moen said. “It’s a lot to get the kids used to and it’s a lot to get the school used to.”

Not only is Moen starting a new program with the classes, she’s also facilitating Future Farmers of America, which is a student-led organization. In Illinois, all students in agriculture classes are automatically part of FFA although it’s up to them how much they choose to participate.

In agriculture education, “we call it the three circles model,” she said. Learning is facilitated through classroom instruction, FFA and supervised agricultural experience.

Typically, students begin in the classroom where the teacher is giving instruction or doing labs. The FFA is application of knowledge. It might be about what they’ve already learned in class, what they will learn in class or something else they are interested in.

In FFA, students elect leaders, known as the officer team, and they compete against other schools. There are about 30 competitions they can participate in, which could be going down into soil pits to judge what type of soil it is, testing their knowledge of growing food through a written test, or many other activities.

Supervised agricultural experience is another way students apply their knowledge by gaining work experience in the agriculture field. They can either start their own business or work for somebody else. As some examples, Moen said, students could work on their family farm, start a lawn care business or get a job at Culver’s.

Out of the 90 students enrolled, there are about 20 active FFA members, but “we probably have five or six more that are going to be active members,” Moen said.

At Sterling High School

In July 2016, Sterling High School rechartered its agriculture program, according to ilaged.org, but its roots go back much further.

The high school became a part of FFA’s national chapter in 1935 with about 30 active students during the first year. The chapter was active until at least 1965 when Sterling’s team won a national title at one of the competitions, according to sterlingschoolsfoundation.org.

To start the 2024-25 school year, Sterling Public Schools hired an additional agriculture teacher and secured an additional plot of farmland for its students to utilize as a lab.

Taylor Irvin, who is new to the district this year, teaches crop science, intro to agriculture science and animal science. She also teaches basic agriculture mechanics alongside Stanley, Sterling’s second agriculture teacher. In addition to that, Stanley teaches horticulture 1 and 2, agriculture mechanics 2 and agriculture woodworking.

In the FFA they’ve created their officer teams - the president, vice president, reporter, secretary and treasurer - who Stanley described as “forward-thinking and proactive.”

Irvin has been getting a lot of use out of the school’s new farm plot at the corner of Science Ridge Road and Sixth Avenue in Sterling, which was leased to the school by landowner Kevin Duncan in June. Before securing the new plot, they had one in Rock Falls, but the students only got to go out there once or twice a year.

“I’ve taken my crop science students out a few times,” Irvin said. “I plan on using it as much as possible and the crop students are really excited about having a lab that we can go out to.”

On Sept. 3, the crop science class went out to the plot and met with FFA alum Mike Geiger, who discussed planting, harvesting, and soil sampling. The plot is partially maintained by the students and partially by FFA alumni members. They do a lot of the maintenance on both plots “because our students don’t always have the equipment or the time to do that,” Irvin said.

Between them they have about 180 students in total and about 30 active FFA members, Stanley said.

“In comparison to other years it’s actually been going pretty smoothly,” she said.