Cardington FFA members visit Chicago

From March 7-9, 35 Cardington FFA members and 13 chaperones ventured to Chicago for the annual junior/senior FFA trip. This trip serves as a reward for a commitment to membership and academic success while encouraging exploration, life-long learning, diversified views of the agriculture industry, and cultural awareness.

While in Chicago, students visited the Chicago High School for Agriculture Sciences. Students attend this magnet school of Chicago Public Schools after being accepted via a lottery system. This school, established in 1985, is home to about 800 high school students, all of whom are members of the National FFA Organization.

These students integrate agriculture into their core curriculum before choosing “mini-majors” on which to focus their studies. The FFA officer team is their student council. The school sits on 79 acres within Chicago city limits and is home to 32 acres of crop production, a horse stable, a livestock barn with a fistulated cow for research, an ag mechanics lab, a greenhouse, an aquaponics/tilapia lab, mobile farmstand, foods lab, and an ag finance program.

While here, our members learned about their programming, toured their facilities, and met their students and FFA members, even exchanging contact information with their new friends. This opportunity allowed our students to understand an urban approach to agriculture education and be able to view the agriculture industry and FFA organization from a new perspective. We were brought together with common goals, interests, and experiences, even though we stemmed from different origins.

While in the city, they also got to experience the major attractions of Chicago. On this trip, students visited the John Hancock Building for a night view of the city and to engage in the TILT experience, visited Shedd’s Aquarium — the third largest aquarium in the Western Hemisphere and home to beluga whales — and spent some time in the shops of Chinatown.

Students also got to visit the 360 Chicago Museum, expanding on the Chicago fire, architecture, and the foods and culture of the city before stepping out on “The Ledge,” glass boxes spanning over the edge of the 104th floor of the Willis Tower. Students even got to attend a special dinner and a show of the infamous Blue Man Group. During the show, senior Merek McClure and junior Madison Caulkins were chosen out of the audience to participate in the performance.

On the last day of the trip, students spent the day at Fair Oaks Farm in Fair Oaks, Indiana, named the number one agritourism destination in the Midwest. While there, students toured the Dairy Adventure, Pig Adventure, and Grain Adventure.

Fair Oaks is a fully functioning production agriculture facility that, while observing strict biosecurity measures, built observation facilities to truly welcome the public into the production practices of livestock and grain production. They highlighted innovative practices such as robotic dairy milkers and automated smart gates. They even showed the monitors showing data on each cow’s milk production, which is activated by a microchip in the animal’s ear tag. They had opportunities to witness hog production transparent to today’s production practices, including an ultrasound simulator.

Students raced to see who could hook up simulated milking cups the fastest, learned about plant nutrients and root systems, watched a live calf birth in the birthing barn, and enjoyed farm fresh ice cream in the COWfe. The experience at Fair Oaks served our students differently. For students who haven’t gotten the opportunity to see these practices, they engaged in these learning tools firsthand. For students with extensive agriculture backgrounds, it was eye-opening to see the measures Fair Oaks has taken to transparently inform the general public on agriculture production through agritourism.

The juniors and seniors enjoyed learning about agriculture from an urban perspective and experiencing the wonder of the Windy City!

Submitted by Cardington FFA.