By Melissa Smith, CTE Agriscience Teacher and FFA Advisor at Alpena High School

FFA, or the Future Farmers of America, is a national student organization for those interested in agriculture and leadership. The National FFA Organization is committed to the individual student, providing a path to achievement in premier leadership, personal growth and career success through agricultural education. It is one of the three components of agricultural education. Students are able to join FFA if they are enrolled in an agricultural education program at their high school or middle school. In Michigan, the organization is primarily for students in 7th through 12th grades. All students enrolled in Alpena High School agricultural education classes are also FFA members.

In addition to FFA and classroom instruction, the third component of agricultural education, are Supervised Agricultural Experiences (SAE), practical agricultural activities performed by students outside of scheduled classroom and laboratory time. These Supervised Agricultural Experiences provide a method in agricultural education for students to receive real-world career experiences in an area of agriculture that they are most interested in. An SAE can be a job or paid placement such as working on a farm or for a business or veterinary clinic. They can be unpaid volunteer activities such as volunteering at an animal shelter. For many students there are even entrepreneurship projects such as raising animals and marketing and selling the animals or animal products, or growing a garden and selling produce at a farmer’s market. SAE opportunities are very diverse and some members may even have several of them, depending on their interests.

The Innovations in Agriscience class is our advanced agriscience course for junior and senior students. It is a hands-on project-based CTE (Career and Technical Education) course where students cover a variety of agriscience topics including running and managing the school greenhouse.

Courtesy Photo A bouquet made by Kaelyn Roznowski while working at Falls Creek Produce and Flowers.

Decathlon is an FFA skills contest for Region VI FFA. In teams of three, students compete in 10 different skill areas related to agriculture and natural resources. These skills include forestry, veterinary science, floriculture, livestock breeding identification, and many others.

By Kaelyn Roznowski, FFA Chapter Vice President

My name is Kaelyn Roznowski. I have been in FFA for four years at Alpena High School. I have served as the Chapter Reporter for two years, and now am serving as our Chapter Vice President. Throughout the years, I have developed my SAE more and more, and have grown along with it. My SAE is working at Falls Creek Flowers and Produce. Falls Creek is a family-owned business where they grow different types of flowers. Those flowers are either put together in bouquets, or used to decorate for events. Often, they are made available for sale at local places in Alpena.

In addition to flowers, Falls Creek also grows fruits and vegetables to then sell at our local farmers market in town along with the flower arrangements. Learning about marketing also plays a part in my SAE.

Over the last couple of years, working at Falls Creek has taught me how to do many different things, and encouraged me with many hands-on tasks. My SAE is based on planting bulbs, plugs and seeds into the fields of many varieties of flowers and plants. I also maintain the fields by pulling weeds, watering, pest management, and monitoring plant growth, as well as preparing flowers for an event.

Kaelyn Roznowski

Outside of those tasks, I pick raspberries for Falls Creek during harvest season. In the winter, I help cut boughs to make wreaths, garland and kissing balls.

My SAE has taught me so many things and allowed me to carry it further. For example, it has helped me a lot in FFA with the Decathlon Skills Contest that is held every year. With having learned to make wreaths, I have been able to share that knowledge. I have taught how to make wreaths in our Innovations Class. I turned the wreathmaking process into a demonstration for competition, which has resulted in me teaching other people how to make them, too.

The bonus in education through my SAE doesn’t stop there. It is also helping me understand color theory on what colors go best with each other and teaching me how to make a bouquet myself. Again, I have carried it further by helping people if they needed help in my Innovations Class at school.

This SAE has also taught me flower identification, and how to identify desired plants from undesirable plants we call weeds.

My SAE has taught me many personal responsibilities too, to help me be a good employee. It has prompted me to be punctual, like making sure I am up on time to get to work in the morning, or to get to work on time overall. I also have to make sure that the task I was told to do gets done correctly. Overall, I am so grateful I have gotten the opportunity to do this SAE and work with Karen and Amanda at Falls Creek Flowers and Produce.

Courtesy Photo Kaelyn Roznowski works with bulbs at Falls Creek Produce and Flowers.

Courtesy Photo Mums from Falls Creek Produce and Flowers have been loaded into a pickup truck for transport.