Fort Valley State University

By Ayanna McPhail, publications editor/writer
Agricultural Communications Department

Forestry Career Development Events for high school students are not a walk in the park.

To get some training for the challenging forestry events held at Fort Valley State University, 26 educators and students participated in a weeklong program geared toward teaching participants how to master the events.

At the Forestry Career Development Event and Leadership Camp that ended July 11, members of The National Future Farmer of America Organization learned several techniques. They spent time on FVSU’s campus and the nearby Camp John Hope getting tips on how to identify trees, measure land and figure out what type of disorders affect trees – all skills used by professionals who work in the field of forestry. Representatives from such organizations as the Georgia Forestry Commission and Georgia Department of Education taught the classes.

“The whole goal and objective is for the students to win first place in the forestry event contest and to go on to the national competition, so if we can help them learn these techniques then we can help them win the contest. Then hopefully the kids will get jobs and work in the forestry industry,” said Dr. Johnny Carter, the FVSU horticulture professor who coordinated the camp.

In April, Fort Valley State hosts an annual forestry event for Georgia high school students. Students use their math skills and knowledge of forestry to earn enough points to compete in a regional forestry event that lead them to a national FFA competition.

Anthony Robinson, a high school agricultural education teacher at Risley Learning Center in Brunswick, will be teaching forestry class for the first time this year. He brought four students with him to the camp.

“I’m trying to get updated so I know what’s going on,” Robinson said. “I like for my kids to participate in career development events, that way they get a hands-on experience and use what they learned in class.”

In the afternoon portion of camp, students and teachers learned about leadership. Robinson’s students are FFA members, but he hopes they will run for officer positions. Dr. Curtis Borne, a professor of agriculture education at FVSU who also coordinated the event, said, “We want them all to become FFA officers.”

Another goal of Borne’s was to tell the students about various FFA events.

“We want to show them that FFA is more than farming. It is a lot of different agriculture related activities,” he said.

Overall, Robinson said the camp at Fort Valley State was helpful and a good way to expose students to the campus and get them talking about attending his alma mater.

“It was a success. Hopefully they’ll do it again next year and I can bring another crew,” he said. “I’ve learned a lot and the kids have learned a lot as well.”

The camp was funded by a grant Carter applied for with the assistance of Borne. On behalf of the university, Carter received a $107,000 capacity building grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2005. The money has gone toward funding the forestry events, the construction of an outdoor classroom/laboratory and the purchase of forestry tools. Educators who attended the camp received several of these tools for free, including compasses, loggers tapes, cruising vests, prisms and clinometers used to take measurements in the forest. ##