The Southeast Polk Agricultural department was selected as the Model School Award winner for the inaugural CASE Awards Program! The CASE Model School award is designed to recognize schools whose CASE certified teachers are teaching CASE courses to the highest fidelity.
As a part of the award application, Southeast Polk demonstrated how to facilitate CASE instruction in a model learning environment with proper classroom, laboratory space and prescribed equipment, supplies, and materials while scaffolding student learning. Southeast Polk showcased support through the local community, agricultural industry, and state and national grants.
Southeast Polk’s Agriculture teacher, Matthew Eddy shared, “I’m very honored for Southeast Polk to be selected as the inaugural Model School award from CASE. We have been participating in CASE since 2009 in the pilot session and have adopted 4 courses and invested near $100,000 over 8 years from grants including the Governor’s STEM Scale Up program, Prairie Meadows, and Agricultural entities like Polk County Farm Bureau, Heartland Coop, and Farm Credit Services to name a few. It has been a great addition to our STEM education in agriculture and honed my student’s connection to applied sciences so that they may contribute to the ever widening field of agriculture. We will need to have great students who will solve the need for more meat, milk, and eggs using less land and water as we near 2050 — CASE is helping prepare those students today.”
Southeast Polk has been invited to receive the award and co-present a CASE workshop highlighting the achievements at the 2017 National Association of Agricultural Educators Convention hosted in Nashville, Tennessee. The district will also receive a credit for $1,000 worth of product from Vernier Software and Technology.
