Name: CHEC Rocky Mountain Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-06-12T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-06-14T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Denver, CO

Tagged: Agriculture, high school elective

This topic has 11 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 10 years, 1 month ago by greenebalts.

Viewing 12 posts - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)

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April 1, 2015 at 8:46 pm
jill smith
Participant
My son would like to study Agriculture and not sure on the path for this for High school? Has anyone taken this path?

April 1, 2015 at 11:35 pm
anniepeter
Participant
We have. And I will try to help with this as I have time. We are actually working on my son’s transcript now. He had enough ag reading and experience for several credits, but I’m not sure quite how it is going to shape up yet. We had him to list and define everything he had done and try to put a figure on the number of hours that were “learning time”, as opposed to “just” working time. He came up with several thousand hours! We haven’t used a particular text, but followed his interest and the opportunities that presented. His passion was grazing. He devoured books and magazines on the topic, and found ways to utilize his learning. I’ll try to write more later if it seems to be needed. Let me know if you have specific questions or areas of interest. Maybe sometime else will chime in too.
April 2, 2015 at 9:22 am
Sue
Participant
We have similar questions since my 14yo dd’s dream is to have a farm. She is most interested in poultry and livestock but loves to raise vegetables in our very small garden. That said, we live on one of those city lots with the houses only separated by little more than a driveway.
Despite that, we are probably getting a half dozen chickens, if I can find a very cheap way to build a hen house and acquire the other things we need. Our dilemma is not just deciding what materials and subjects she needs for high school (starting 2015-16) but also the fact that she really has little or no practical experience looming ahead due to where we live.
I’m hoping to find ways for her to acquire hands-on experience over the next few years. We have friends, another homeschooling family, who have a few goats, horses, and chickens, and I was thinking of asking if dd could pay a few “working visits” during the months without 3 feet of snow to learn about raising and caring for those animals. They live about 40 minutes away, though, so travel costs is a slight issue. Any other ideas than what has already been mentioned?
April 2, 2015 at 9:49 am
anniepeter
Participant
Good farm labor is HARD to find. And I have yet to know a farm that doesn’t often, if not always, have more work available than people to do it! If you can meet the nearest farmers, and let them know of her interests, and she had a good work ethic… You may not have to do anything else! It may well just happen. Most farmers are also very kind and very concerned about the next generation having the opportunity. They will do all they can to help with this. And they are often very passionate about it. The only caveat is that there often isn’t enough money to go around either. But if she really wants the opportunity, she could purpose value to the farmer, and just do it for the learning, without pay. What a blessing that would have been to us when we were on the farm! How to go about meeting farmers… You could stop in at dairies at milking time and inquire. That is where the greatest need for labor may be, since it is the most labor intensive enterprise I know. As far as materials… We just used a ton of different resources and experiences. This is an area where a log of sources, experiences and time will be your best bet for determining credit. More later of you want it. 🙂 I’m off to make breakfast.
April 2, 2015 at 10:08 am
anniepeter
Participant
Nursing baby now…
An excellent starting point that my kids used, was Joel Salatin’s book “You CAN Farm”. It is living!, easy to read, offers a sustainable farming model, and is hilarious to boot! Our kids loved it.
It might be helpful to know what part if the country you are in,if you want to talk resources further.
April 2, 2015 at 12:01 pm
Sue
Participant
Thanks for the book recommendation. One of our local libraries has it! Have you (or anyone else) read the book, Our Farm: Four Seasons with Five Kids on One Family’s Farm, by Michael J. Rosen? It is listed in the SCM Bookfinder, so someone put it there….one library journal review says it is for grades 3-7, so it might seem a little “young” for her, but she’s not a very fluent reader, so that’s probably not an issue. Just wondering if the content would interest her.
Also, we are in northeast Ohio.
April 2, 2015 at 4:08 pm
anniepeter
Participant
Sue..It sounds like a great read aloud to me, but I am not familiar with it…yet 😉
Jrs5kids…a little more now on how this shaped up for us. My first thought was to do Agricultural Biology for 9th grade science. You could certainly do this if you have time to put it together. I spent quite a bit of time looking at course descriptions online by this name and planned on putting something together… But it never quite happened. Other things happened instead. We found Biology 101 and Chemistry 101 and used them as a starting point, adding a few other resources, to give him a half credit “intro” course in these. These took him from “not liking” science, to thoroughly enjoying it, accomplishing Mom’s top goals for science for him. Nap time/schooltime again… More later!
April 2, 2015 at 11:23 pm
anniepeter
Participant
We also did a year of Physical Science. From that point, his studies in this area (ag/science) were completely interest and opportunity driven. He was very involved in activities on our farm from overhauling a tractor with Dad to managing the baling on 70+ acres largely on his own while Dad was traveling for work. Then purchasing a baler and running a custom baling business of his own. Somewhere in there he raised a few pigs, steers and chickens on his own and in partnership with his sister, worked on uncle’s dairy, some friends dairy, a sheep farm owned by a vet, a beef farm owned by a retired vet where he got to work side by side in both cases with the vet handling the animals for a season doing various “veterinary things”, and in the end a farmer approached him and asked him to manage his herd in another location for a season… Which he decided to do along with a friend. Along with all that, he subscribed to the Stockman Grass Farmer magazine, chose several books from Acres, USA about grazing, calving, husbandry…, attended a 3-4 day Organic Veterinary Course put on by Organic Valley and taught by a several well-renowned vets, and was mentored by at least five different farmers besides his dad along the way. He had also attended the “School of Hard Knocks” along the way! Anyway, that’s what it looked like for us. Hope you’re not sorry you asked 🙂
April 3, 2015 at 8:28 pm
retrofam
Participant
Christian Light has highschool electives called Introductory Horticulture, and Exploring Agriscience. Our public library has them.
April 4, 2015 at 9:15 am
Sue
Participant
Thanks for the book recommendations. I found that I can get at least one of those through inter-library loan.
April 4, 2015 at 9:29 am
greenebalts
Participant
We are a rural farm family and though our dd did not enter an agriculture field, I did give credit in high school for work she completed in the ag science field. I did a blog post here highlighting books/movies and experiences used to determine her elective credits…
http://reflectionsfromdrywoodcreek.blogspot.com/search/label/Electives
Maybe it will spark some feasible ideas for your son. Sorry if it’s repetitive, I didn’t read all the above responses.
Blessings,
Melissa
April 15, 2015 at 9:10 am
Michelle Brumgard
Participant
I think this is wonderful! I’m the daughter of a dairy farmer. My husband now works on the farm too. I think all of Joel Salatin’s books are fantastic, even though, heis to necessarily liked by some AG people. I dream of a day where everyone would take on the “You can Farm” mentality. Anyhow…you have farm land not too far from you probably in Ohio. Approaching a farm in a respectful and interested manner, most will be honored to see someone in the next generation having interest. Ohio State probably has Ag programs for teens. Penn State does here in PA. If you can get connected to a local 4-H club, that would be a great community opportunity that can get you in a larger network to connect with others in Ag. What is his specific Ag interest? This will help in where to direct you.