Agricultural Education

This guide includes different one-, three-, and five-day options for curated and cohesive activities to leave for students when you need to be away from your classroom for a varying number of days. The theme of this guide is plant systems and all selected activities are related to learning more about plant systems and production agriculture.

Addison Kennon processes jalapenos as part of her supervised agricultural experience (SAE). She grows and sells jalapenos locally, focusing on food safety and proper canning techniques she learned from her mother. Students will watch a video on Addison’s SAE and explore how they could begin their own food processing SAE.

Students will leap into the world of raising and showing livestock by learning about a sheep focused ownership/entrepreneurship SAE and explore options for their own version of one FFA member's project.

Students will explore the benefits of therapeutic gardening by learning about one FFA member's service learning SAE and how they could create their own version.

In this lesson, students will explore how an FFA chapter turned a dairy goat SAE into a successful school-based enterprise by processing and selling by-products from their goats.

Lily Carriker’s SAE involves the website she created for a local agribusiness in her community. Students will watch a video on Lily’s agricultural communications SAE, spend time exploring different websites and think about how they would design their own websites.

It is never too early for students to start learning about how their interests and skills can lead to a future career. At Mount Pleasant Middle School in North Carolina, every student has an SAE that aligns with their interests and helps them prepare for their futures. Students will watch a video about middle school SAEs and complete a scavenger hunt using the SAE Idea Cards.

Mary Kate and Reyna manage their school’s hydroponics program, “Jackets for the Future,” which provides fresh lettuce to their school community. Students will watch a video on this SAE and then brainstorm their own ideas and plans for a possible school-based enterprise SAE on their campus using the resources of their agricultural education department.

This National FFA lesson plan, "High Pressure, High Potential," introduces students to entrepreneurship by following the story of a student-run pressure washing SAE through a video.

This FFA "Living to Serve" lesson plan introduces students to service-learning through a real-world SAE example in which three students (Lily, Ashlyn, and Charlotte) created maternity and baby kits…

"Hot Sauce Hustle" is an FFA lesson plan in which students explore entrepreneurship and school-based enterprises (SBEs) through a video about a real FFA chapter that turned its school garden into a…