Transcripts

LEI FANGER: Walk south through this healthy cornfield not far from the Iowa border and you step out into a schoolyard. There stands the old brick two-story, the slide and the merry-go-round, an empty football field. And just a long pass away, a neat red barn and silo. In Delavan, farmer and friends of the magnet school committee member Mark Wheeler says farming and schooling have always been done side by side.

MARK WHEELER: I went to school here. And as we'd go out for recess, I mean, the cows and the pigs were right across the fence occasionally. The baseball would go into the pasture. And if we would take a few more steps and look into the barn, you could see little pigs being born in that.

LEI FANGER: The bond between agriculture and Delavan schoolchildren got a lot tighter this week when the school reopened with a new name and a new mission. The Delavan Agroscience Elementary School is the state's first magnet elementary to build its entire curriculum-- math and science, history, the whole herd of subjects around the farm.

The project grew out of a planning grant from the Center for School Change. Third grade teacher Kate Warmke says that now when agriculture has seemingly been shoved aside by many schools, is the right time for this experiment.

KATE WARMKE: Even in some of the smaller surrounding communities that have high schools, you can see that they've dropped their agricultural classes. the FFA programs that used to be real strong, they're dropping those. We had the University of Minnesota Waseca that is closing down after this year. And it's like the government and a lot of people are saying it's not important. So we don't need to emphasize it, and we feel it is important.

LEI FANGER: That's not to say the Delavan Elementary is devoting itself to raising up a new generation of farmers. Right now, perhaps 65% of the school's 90 students live on a farm or have relatives who do. But superintendent Chris Voltz says the idea is to make that farm experience work to the students' advantage no matter which career they eventually choose.

GAIL OTTOSON: If children choose to become farmers as they grow up, that's fine, but that's not what we're encouraging them to do. We're only just using the background that they come with us, come to us with and then developing that to help them to learn.

LEI FANGER: The result is a curriculum that will infuse agriculture into every subject, every class. Ideally, it will translate math and science concepts, for example, into lessons the students have already begun to learn on the farm. Kate Warmke and Gail Ottoson teach third and second grade.

GAIL OTTOSON: Kids need to have more experiences with real life situations because a lot of times, they're learning things that they're not able to apply to real life.

KATE WARMKE: A bushel of wheat-- getting a bushel of wheat, that can be used in so many ways. I think you can-- commodities can come in. There, we could get someone from the elevator to come down and talk about the price changes. Measuring it, how many quarts are in a bushel of wheat. If the kids have had hands-on they'll know what a bushel is when they're finished.

LEI FANGER: Even physical education has taken a twist toward agriculture. The phy ed teacher has devised a point system for children who exercise after school. And this year kids, who bale hay, pick rock, and do other farm chores will get points for the activity. The kids themselves like Corey Hanson and Jay Hoffman say they still don't know quite what to expect from their changed school, but they're willing to give it a try.

COREY HANSON: I live in town, and I get to know a little bit more about the farm and what they do and--

JAY HOFFMAN: Feed pigs and cultivate and stuff.

COREY HANSON: You have to know what you're doing.

LEI FANGER: One thing the magnet school is designed to accomplish is the continued survival of elementary education in Delavan. The town lost grades 7 through 12 to nearby Blue Earth three years ago. Since then, the school board has been looking for ways to strengthen the elementary program and keep the school open.

Al Withers runs the Minnesota ag in the classroom program, which encourages teachers statewide to integrate agriculture into their curricula. He says if an ag magnet school is going to work anywhere, it will work here.

AL WITHERS: It is a small school in a rural setting and it darn well better work there. It'd be equally or more interesting if north Minneapolis said we're going to have an agri science elementary school.

LEI FANGER: Withers has helped supply Delavan with ag teaching materials and says he'll probably use the program as a model, spinning off their more successful ideas to other schools. In Delavan, the hope is that students and parents, both here and in nearby towns will be impressed enough that enrollment will grow, and the school will prosper. Mark Wheeler says that depends on how many people still value the things learned growing up on the farm.

MARK WHEELER: Things change on the farm. The weather changes, the crop prices change. And they realize that the world is not constant. We're trying to create an all-around child that can come out of this school and go to a high school and then enter the workforce who can compete anywhere, who can adapt, and who has the values that create strong leadership.

LEI FANGER: Delavan farmer Mark Wheeler. This is Lei Fanger.