In January, the Day County Health Nurse visited our classroom for a farm safety lesson.
Students learned about Stop the Bleed, proper use of tourniquets, and practiced hands-on CPR skills. These life-saving skills that are especially important in agriculture and rural communities.
Huge thank you to Briana Aadland for taking the time to provide real-world, hands-on learning for our students. Experiences like this make a lasting impact!
In February, SD Game, Fish, & Parks visited the classroom.
Students learned how to identify male vs. female pheasants and got hands-on experience with proper cleaning and transportation practices.
Huge thank you to the SD Game, Fish & Parks team for helping connect wildlife management, conservation, and agriculture for our students!
March has been exciting! We paired our study of the ruminant digestive system with a thrilling Fear Factor-style experiential activity.
Students had to reach their hands into mystery bags and, using only their sense of touch (and the knowledge from their notes), try to guess which part of the digestive system they were feeling.
Each bag represented a different compartment:
• Rumen – feed and hay with a rag to represent the papillae lining
• Reticulum – Eggos waffles to mimic the honeycomb pattern, plus feed, hay, and even a screwdriver to represent the metal objects often found there
• Omasum – wet paper towels to act like the “pages of a book” folds with ground feed
• Abomasum – a slimy baggie with wet ground feed to represent the true stomach
• Intestines – noodles to simulate the long digestive tract
It was a fun way to bring animal science to life and help students understand how ruminant animals digest their feed. Learning by doing—and sometimes by feeling—is the best kind of learning!
- Mrs. Hoven
Ag/FFA teacher