Spring Break in Minnesota!

As many of you know, I was able to spend my Spring break in Minnesota teaching at Minnewaska High School along side of Mrs. Tiffany Kobbermann. I got to teach her Global Agriculture course which consisted of about 10 upper classmates. I had such a fun time teaching these students about global agriculture and how they can be an important part of their community. I am going to highlight some of the cool things that happened during this week and how they impacted me!

Headed North

We flew out of Philadelphia Airport around 130 on Saturday afternoon. Emily and I made it threw security in about 10 minutes, so we had some extra time to kill in the airport. We were very shocked, but would have rather been early rather than late. So, we decided to find the Chic-Fil-A  and have some lunch. We met up with the Noah and Brandon and boarded our flight!

It was very cool to get to see Minnesota from the sky, as it was all white! When we landed in Minneapolis, and were greeted with cold weather and two feet of snow! We were able to get our rental cars, which cost an arm and a leg and get on the road. It took us some time to get used to driving the new car and the traffic in the City. We started our two hour trek to the more rural side of Minnesota. On our way, we stopped to see the worlds largest ball of twine!

After making a quick sight seeing stop, we decided it was time to find some dinner. Brandon found the Red Goat Restaurant, which was a very cool hometown bar! We enjoyed a nice dinner and made our way to Alexandria, which is where our Air BnB was located. We stopped to grab some groceries and finally got settled around 10pm! Whew! What a long travel day!

Day 1

Our day started off slow as we wanted to rest up for a busy week. We made our way to meet Mrs. Kobbermann at Minnewaska High School to discuss lesson plans and get acquainted with the teaching space. We even got to attend her daughter's 1st grade birthday party while we were there! We came up with our game plan for the next day, because they were expecting some snow overnight. 

Then, we made our way to meet up with the boys at Oakdale Farm. This was Mr. Sawatzke's Wife's family turkey farm. We got to learn a little bit of history about the farm and how they overcame challenges. I was intrigued to learn how they switched from a breeding farm to a meat farm, due to lack of labor that they had. Mrs. Sawatzke's wife was even gracious enough to make us a home cooked meal, and shockingly, she made us.... Turkey! It was so nice to be welcomed into their home for a very nice meal to start off our week!

Day 2

We started our Monday morning off, in a not so typical way by going to tour a Winery with Mrs. Kobbermann. I did not realize how large the wine industry was in Minnesota, but it was cool to get to talk with the owners of Winery. Unfortunately, there was not much see as far as the Vineyards because it was covered in snow, but we got to see some of the equipment and the barrels that were aging wine. 

It was finally our first day to teach, and luckily we did not have a 2 hour delay! I taught the lesson that I had created on the World Food Prize, Norman Borlaug, and the Laureates. We were able to use the puzzle pieces that I created in order to foster the idea in the students that everyone plays a piece in the fight to end hunger. The message that I wanted them to take away from that lesson was that even though the may think that they are only person, that they can have a huge impact on their community and those around them. I taught 2nd period, so the rest of the day I observed Mrs. Kobbermann teach and helped with anything that she needed. 

After school was out, we met up with the boys and went to a highly recommended restaurant for dinner called Pike and Pint. Although they are very popular for their seafood, I am not a seafood person so I ordered Chicken Alfredo, which was very good! We took a trip to Walmart to gather some supplies that we were missing and stopped Menards. We didn't actually buy anything here, but just wanted to experience it. We were amazed because you could buy anything from a mattress, plants, lamps, to groceries! To end our night we stopped at Caribou Coffee to grab a treat!

Day 3

Today was more of a typical school day for us and I was able to teach the first lesson on Global Citizenship and the Sustainable Development Goals. This day taught me a lot about students and how to get them engaged in the lesson. My group of students were very quiet, so getting them to interact with the lesson was tough at some points. I knew that the terms that I was going to be explaining in the lesson that day were going to be hard for them to understand. 

This is the calf pen, 
they are all less than
24 hours old!

After school, we got to tour one heck of a dairy operation called Riverview Dairy. They have over 18 different farms in 5 different states. They have over a dozen dairies and nearly 100,000 cows in Minnesota, South Dakota, and Arizona. They have a system in place, that in the North States the cows and milked and bred, and then the calves are shipped down to the Arizona and New Mexico to be raised in a feed lot. Once the heifers are about 10 months in age, they are shipped north again to begin having calves and producing milk. We visited their facility in Morris Minnesota and they milk about 4000 cows just at that site and have about 25-30 calves a day. We were even lucky enough to see a calf be born and see how they care for it! We also got to see a 60 cow carousel milker in action. They said that it is milking cows 22 hours a day, and is cleaned twice day from 12-1 both am and pm. After a very informative tour, we had dinner at a local restaurant and headed back to our Air BnB.

Day 4

I got to teach the 2nd lesson on agricultural commodities around the world as well as systems with inputs and outputs. After I was done teaching, we got to take our pictures with the class with the signs that we brought for them to hang up. We decided to do this today, because the weather was just making things very unpredictable and we wanted to make sure that we had these pictures. 

After school, the boys came down to our school and we got an in depth tour of Minnewaska's Agriculture and FFA program. It was very cool to see all of the shops and hands on opportunities that they provide their students. They have everything from a metal shop, welding area, robotics, small gas engines, wood shop, garage and so much more. 

After that, Mrs. Kobbermann set up the awesome opportunity to attend their regional Farm Bureau meeting. We had a great meal and learned about some of the current issues facing Minnesota Agriculture 

Day 5

Today was did not go how it was originally supposed to, so we improvised. In the original plan, we were not going to be teaching today, but instead helping with their career day for the 7-9th graders. Half the day we were going to be listening to speakers at the school and the other half of the day we were going to be on busses to do industry tours. BUT, Mother nature had other plans and they decided to cancel career day. So, now we were going to have a regular school day. We also had to adjust our lesson plans a lot, because we were not sure if we were going to have school on Friday or if it would be a delay. Just to be safe, we decided to teach our lessons planned for Friday, today. For me, this was the community mapping activity. I did this a little differently with my students and decided to draw a map of the different crops and resources within Minnesota. We discussed why they are focused in one area and not the other. 

After school, Emily and I stopped at Waska village which was a very cool souvenir store. It was actually 10 little sheds with each one holding different goodies, so we found some things to take home with us. We then met up with the boys and had dinner at the Pizza Ranch, which was a Pizza Buffet. That was really good and I ate way too much. We decided to put all of our teacher brains to the test and try out an escape room! This was my first time ever doing one and I was very surprised at how mind boggling it can be. We managed to Save Christmas in 45 minutes. We had 15 minutes to spare, which we thought was a very good time. 

Day 6

We made it to our final day of teaching! We learned how to be flexible with our lessons because originally we did not plan to teach all 5 days of our immersion. So, I decided to use some activities that Mrs. Kobbermann had from Farm Bureau to fill our time. These also related to our content because we were talking about commodities. I also took the time to discuss a mushroom house, as that is something that is quite popular in south eastern PA, but I realized those students had no idea what I was talking about. This was cool, because even I learned about how mushrooms are grown. 

After lunch, Emily and I got the chance to go to West Central High School, which is where the boys taught this week. We got a tour of their newly established greenhouse and we got to see all of the cool technology that they get to work with. After that, we headed back to our Air BnB to pack up a little earlier than expected. With an incoming snowstorm, we decided it was best to drive to the Twin Cities instead of waiting until the next morning. 

We didn't leave without having a nice meal with the boys and our cooperating teachers. This was a nice way to have a group discussion of what we learned this week and how we are going to use that as we move forward in our teaching careers. After dinner, we hit the road. About halfway to the twin cities, we stopped at Nelson Bro's Bakery. They served their pastries in large form, as they were larger than my hand. This was a nice treat, before we made it to our hotel for the night

Headed Home

It wouldn't be a farewell from Minnesota without a snowstorm. We ended our trip by taking a driving tour of the University of Minnesota and stopping for lunch. Then we headed to the airport for our flight home!

This was such a great trip and I am so thankful for everything I learned from Mrs. Kobbermann about classroom management. I am excited to be able to take everything I learned into my student teaching internship.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading. It was a jam packed week and it was hard to pick out the most impactful events. But, I am glad that I can have this to look back on this week!

Until next time

~ Paige