When Suffolk County legislator Al Krupski saw what the students in the Agriculture Education program at Mattituck Jr.-Sr. High School were up to, he was so impressed that he extended an invitation for them to come to the County Center to address members of the Education & Human Services Committee and give a presentation.
This afternoon, principal Shawn Petretti, Earth Science teacher Eric Frend and three students from the Ag-Ed program spoke to committee members and to Dr. Dorothy Laffin, executive dean of Suffolk County Community College’s Eastern Campus about the new and exciting things they’ve been doing both inside and outside the classroom.
Petretti began the presentation by giving an overview of the evolution of the program, something he said was akin to “building a plane while it’s flying.”
It began in the spring of 2015 when farmer Carl Gabrielsen invited Petretti, Krupski and several others to his farm to discuss agricultural education in the schools. Petretti was immediately struck by how different his image of what farming was to what it had evolved into.
“It’s not about a man on a tractor going up and down rows wearing overalls,” he said. It had become very scientific. High yield, low impact farming was the future, he said.
Gabrielsen described some of the new methods and said that they didn’t have the workforce to do this type of farming.
Petretti’s interest was immediately piqued. “If we could do something that excited our students and they would pursue an education in this field and potentially make a good living on the North Fork, that’s a win-win situation,” he said. He also saw the opportunity for an agricultural program to work across the curriculum and with the help of Earth Science teacher Eric Frend, who has a background in environmental science, got right to work.
Gabrielsen donated a greenhouse, an environmental science class was put on the schedule and immediately 27 students signed up. A snafu with the greenhouse – it didn’t pass an inspection – forced the now homeless program into an old science lab. Not to be deterred, Petretti worked with what he had, installing growing beds made by wood shop students, LED lights donated by Gabrielsen, and in no time they had created an agriculture laboratory.
“We turned a bad thing into a good thing,” said Petretti. Soon they were hatching trout, raising clownfish and incubating chicken eggs, in addition to growing lettuce.
“Five graduates from that class went on to pursue majors directly related to environmental science,” Petretti said proudly. “So we saw the impact right away. This year we had to run two courses because 54 students signed up. Interest exploded.”
Once the greenhouse was up and running, the program grew and included students from Life Skills classes, the culinary program as well as wood shop.
“This has changed our school,” said Petretti. “It’s piqued a lot of interest, put the whole conversation of sustainability to the forefront.” It wouldn’t have been possible without the enthusiasm of the staff and the support of the administration and the board of education, he said.
Frend added that in 20 years he’d never seen interest in a class like he has for this one, and said that support from the community and the faculty had been tremendous.
Addressing the committee, Amanda Young, a senior who once lived on a family farm, said, “We can take these things that we learned and apply them in the summer or even years after we graduated. It’s just something different and cool and a lot of people should get to experience it.”
“There’s only so much you can learn from a textbook,” said Julianna Sluyters, also a senior. “And there’s something different about having your hands full of dirt and actually doing something.”
Sophomore Gabriella Hassildine said that being in the Ag-Ed program raised awareness of the farming that goes on throughout the North Fork. “It’s made our students so much more conscious of what’s going on in their community,” she said.
Krupski expressed the hope that the underutilized greenhouse at the Eastern Campus of Suffolk County Community College could be put to use by students in Ag-Ed programs in the future.
“It’s a good program,” Krupski, who is a fourth-generation farmer, said. “They see how food grows, they’re taking it basically from seed to growing it and all the way to the cafeteria. They complete the loop and it’s a great learning experience. It exposes them to math and science. They’re learning about water flow, fertilizers, all the biology. It’s important for the younger generation to know where their food comes from.”
SoutholdLOCAL photos by Katharine Schroeder
