SAE Visit: Beekeeping

During my time at Derry, I had the opportunity to oversee many students' Supervised Agricultural Experiences, or SAE, projects. Some of these projects are housed within the school utilizing the facilities available including the ag mechanics shop and the greenhouse while others are at students’ homes. One student explained his beekeeping SAE to me and I immediately wanted to visit. Beforehand, the student explained to me the background of how he became interested in beekeeping. His hives are kept at his grandfather's house and they work on the project together. 

My cooperating teacher and I visited the student’s grandfather’s house after school one day, coordinating to make sure it was a beekeeping day. When we arrived, the student was working outside with his grandfather and the bees. They gave us a tour of the space and opened up a hive to see what’s going on. The grandfather explained that he has been beekeeping for decades and is happy to help with the SAE project. One recommendation made from the visit was to set up a schedule to make sure the student could help with the bees regularly rather than whenever he happened to be over at his grandfather’s house at the same time there was bee work to be done. 

            This SAE visit was interesting to compare with the previous visit I made to a student working at a dog grooming business. Since this visit was to a home, I was able to get much more context around the student’s family and home life rather than simply their place of work. After visiting, I understand the value that home SAE visits have in building community connections and support for the program while keeping students on track and praising the great work they’ve done on their SAEs. 

            After visiting, I would evaluate this project on the same criteria as I spoke about in my previous blog post reflecting on visiting the student working at the dog grooming business. I would have them enter their records in AET (as the student is currently doing) and have a minimum requirement of one entry per week. I would have them track the monetary side of the project as well as a journal entry detailing the work they did each week and one picture. I think it could also be interesting to somehow have the perspective of anyone they work with for the project to include a journal entry about the student’s work from an outside perspective. This would be much less often however because, afterall, it is the student’s project.