Colton, Oakesdale receive $25,000 for ag programs

Garth Meyer | Aug 22, 20190

The Oakesdale and Colton school districts have both been awarded $25,000 grants from a Monsanto-Bayer ag education program, announced earlier in August.

Oakesdale applied for the grant specifically to add another greenhouse, for use by Jessica Moore's FFA/ag classes. The 30x40-foot structure, to go up on the old tennis courts, will be at least triple the size of the existing greenhouse.

Colton will use the $25,000 for three purchases – a classroom set of laptops more capable than the school-issued Chromebooks, four VEX Robotics kits and a $10,000 3D printer.

Colton

Colton FFA teacher Nathan Moore will start his 25th year teaching this fall, with the new grant the latest in a string helping to fund Colton's program.

“For ag, we're not basic education,” he said of the emphasis on grants.

Moore, Jessica's husband, has taught computers (Microsoft Office) in the past, to which he will now add Robotics and 3D printing.

“The grant is focused on STEM: science, technology, engineering and math. What we're buying will basically hit those four components,” said Moore.

For robotics, he will tailor it toward potential ag-related uses, such as coding for a robot to go through an orchard or for use in an assembly line.

“They need to get introduced to that,” Moore said of his students. “(The kit) won't write code for them, but it will tell them if it's right.”

One project with the 3D printer – which uses coils of plastic to melt into programmed, designed shapes – would be to make cookie-cutters such as those with the WSU logo for sale in recent years. Another, initial project for Colton students would be to design mini, prototype support beams for construction, to study how much weight they would bear.

Bio-technology

Last year, the first of two top years in ag education grants for Colton, Moore started a biotechnology class, funded by $35,000 in a CASE – Curriculum for Agricultural Science Education – grant from the State of Washington. The money also paid for Moore to spend two weeks last summer at a CASE curriculum institute at Goldendale, going through an entire year's worth of the lessons.

In the past two years, Colton has been awarded $131,000 in ag education grants.

“I've never been able to get as many grants as I have now,” Moore said.

He attributed it to experience, getting better at writing grant applications and the desire to bring new equipment into Colton's four-year-old ag building.

“Nathan is the best kind of educator,” said Paul Clark, Colton superintendent/high school principal. “He understands his community, he understands his kids. And how they connect.”

The grants have allowed for many more lab days in class.

“It's gotten to the point where kids say, another lab today...? Sometimes they want to hear me talk,” Moore said.

Biotechnology class will now be offered every two years in Colton – due to the cost of $3,000 per class in “consumables,” the one-time use materials needed for experiments.

The class began last year with a history of genetics and led to culturing bacteria, taking genes from translucent jellyfish to insert into e. coli to see the bacteria later grow and glow in the dark.

Kids also took DNA from the inside of their cheek, and separated it from the (epidermis) cell.

“It looks like cotton candy in a liquid,” Moore said.

Oakesdale

Jessica Moore, a third-year ag teacher/FFA advisor for Oakesdale, will teach bio-technology this fall, funded in part by a $62,000 CASE grant awarded in 2018.

From this year's Monsanto-Bayer grant, the new greenhouse will allow change what she does.

“It's hard to get a lot of students in there now at once,” Jessica said. “I wanted more of a teaching greenhouse. Also more of a production greenhouse, so students can see what industry is like as well.”

Production would include increasing the number of plants grown for the Oakesdale FFA plant sale in May.

It will all be in the confines of the STEM-based grant.

“A lot of ag education already incorporates a lot of that,” said Jessica.

At the new greenhouse – for which more grants will be applied for its estimated cost of $60,000 – ag mechanics students will build tables and sawhorses for the inside.

The grant allows for one year to complete the project.

“We're not quitting, we're gonna get it figured out,” said Jessica. “This is the first step in this project we're super-excited about.”

Jake Dingman, Oakesdale superintendent, indicated that more grants will be sought, and if there is still a shortfall, the district will cover the rest of the greenhouse from their general fund, and seek grants for reimbursement.

Applying

Earlier this year, Jessica Moore saw that Oakesdale was nominated by four farmers for the Monsanto-Bayer grant, which is part of the decision process. She thus applied.

“It fits her vision for the program. The kids are really liking it,” said Dingman. “It's a thriving program.”

Moore will also use the greenhouse to teach bio-technology.

The school also has a “coldframe,” built on the old tennis courts, which has no cooling or heating system.

Oakesdale will also send two freshman this October to the National FFA convention, Emily Dingman and Jessie Reed, who qualified in the middle school competition of agri-science fair. They will present their social science project – a taste test between Oreos and generic Oreos.

38-year hiatus

The FFA program at Oakesdale, originally chartered in 1955, was reinstated in 2014 after a 38-year hiatus.

“Some of the students wear their grandparents' jackets,” said Jessica. “The tradition is there. It just took a little break.”

Near the time that Oakesdale prepared to bring back its ag program, by chance its original FFA chapter charter was found in a file cabinet being cleaned out.

“We didn't even have to reapply,” said Dingman.

During the interim years, some Oakesdale kids did go to Tekoa for ag classes.

Jessica is the third ag teacher at Oakesdale since the re-forming, following Lindsey Brown and Buddy Carter, who came out of retirement at Garfield/Palouse to lead the program for two years.

Moore previously taught ag at Pullman High School for 10 years.

“It did not make sense that Oakesdale did not have an ag program,” said Dingman.

Qualifying

To qualify for a Monsanto-Bayer Grow Rural Education grant, farmers nominate a school or school district to compete for a merit-based grant of either $10,000 or $25,000.

Nominated school districts then submit an application describing their project. Grow Rural Education’s Farmer Advisory Council, made up of 30 farmer leaders from across the country, then review the finalist applications and choose the winners.

Grow Rural Education began in 2011, awarding more than $18 million since to more than 1,000 schools in rural communities across the country.