FFA Meeting: Columbus FFA middle school members met on Monday, Dec. 16 at 7 p.m. Their agenda items included quiz bowl team and practices, National FFA Week and Career Development Event teams. The chapter members met at 7:30 p.m. and the agenda included the fruit sale, the Holiday workshop, wrapping gifts for the NICC foundation, and reports of past activities. The FFA members enjoyed holiday snacks.

Holiday Workshop: The Columbus FFA hosted its fourth annual holiday workshop for the fifth grade students. There were 34 participants and 12 FFA members assisting at the event. The fifth graders decorated cutout cookies, made a holiday ornament and participated in a Agricultural Christmas lesson and activity. The room was buzzing with excitement and fun! Everyone had a great time!

NICC Foundation Gift Wrap: The Columbus FFA officers and several FFA members went to the NICC Foundation on Dec. 19 and helped wrap gifts. There were 15 FFA members present that helped wrap at least two family’s gifts for Christmas. The FFA members had a lot of fun and enjoyed helping people in need.

Wisconsin FFA SAE Grant: The Wisconsin FFA Foundation announced the SAE grant winners this week and Columbus FFA member Logan Raeder was one of the grant recipients. Logan is an eighth grader at Columbus Middle School. He completed his application based on his needs to start raising chickens. Logan did a lot of research for this project. He spent a lot of time completing the application, which earned him $455 sponsored by the Andis Foundation. Logan is super excited to receive this award!

FFA Officer Half- Time, Dec. 19: The FFA officers met on Thursday, Dec. 19 to plan their banquet and National FFA Week activities and review their Program of Activities to finish out the year! The officers also shared their Secret Santa gifts and did some team building!

FFA Awards and Scholarships: January and February are busy times of year for FFA members, especially those that are applying for awards and scholarships. Winter break is a good time to get a head start on these applications. If any FFA members or parents have questions or need assistance, contact Mrs. Crook—gcrook@columbus.k12.wi.us.

FFA Alumni Meeting: Columbus FFA Alumni will hold its next meeting on Jan. 20 at 5:30 p.m. in the CHS Multipurpose room. All parents are invited to attend. The alumni will be discussing scholarships, their Fun Night Scholarship Fundraiser and other activities.

Agribusiness Dinner: March 17, 2020, the Agribusiness dinner will be held again this year at Kestrel Ridge with a new comedian. Proceeds from this event are donated to the Columbus FFA and Ag Ed Program. Save the date!

SAE- The students participated in the Week 4 lesson at the high school focusing on personal responsibility. The students watched a couple of videos explaining how taking responsibility for your own happiness is your responsibility. The students then set a goal for the week to be more personally responsible to themselves. The students analyzed their personal responsibility and created a list of specific skills they will need for their future career.

Ag Careers and Leadership: The Ag Careers and Leadership class spent the week working on their Career Unit. The students created resumes and cover letters that they can use for future employment opportunities. The students also created a career portfolio using Google Sites. They each uploaded six artifacts demonstrating specific employability skills. The students then shared their E-portfolios with the class. The students were also introduced to their Global Agriculture unit with a Heritage Menu assignment. The students asked their parents about their heritage and are creating a menu with foods from their ethnic background. The students also checked their clothing labels today to see where their clothing is manufactured. The class discussed the reason why none of their clothing was made in the USA and U.S. companies have their products made in foreign countries. The students will dig deeper into Global Ag after the winter break. For etiquette Friday the students learned how to fold napkins to impress their families over the holidays!

Agricultural Food Science: This class worked on their PBJ packaging this week and then put their creations to the stress tests. Each sandwich was tested for flying against the wall of a truck during transport, falling off the counter to the floor and a very large book dropping on top of their packaged sandwich. The students learned a lot about the need for structurally sound food packaging. The students conducted their first food science lab. The lab ingredients were all labeled by their chemical names and the students weighed and measure the ingredients using a scale. The students learned by the end of the procedure that they had created peanut brittle. The students applied the chemical basis to food science this week as well, looking at how chemistry plays a major role in food development. The students conducted a hydrophobic or hydrophilic food lab to determine how different foods reacted with water.

Food, Forests and Wildlife: The sixth grade students started the week with their Food Science unit. They made lemon soda and Jammin Jelly. They were so excited during this unit. They really enjoyed learning about how a solution is made, how color can be used to determine a substances pH and that they can thicken a solution using algin from Seaweed. The class finished the week learning about Nature’s Recyclers. They read a poem about the recyclers and then started learning about worms. They conducted worm interviews on Friday and learned about all kinds of worms.

Pizza, Pets and Plants: The seventh grade students continued to share their crop reports this week and they learned more about biotechnology. The students conducted a genetic activity creating super heroes they learned about selective breeding and how it can be used to create new breeds or foods. Their favorite activity was extracting their own DNA. They swished some Gatorade and with some Dawn dish soap and ethyl alcohol they were able to pull their DNA out of the mixture. They were surprised to see it was a gooey glob. They finished the week participating in an interactive Gel electrophoresis activity online.

Animals, Plants and Food Science: The students continued to share their Food preservation presentations this week. They also started their livestock unit. The students first learned about the classification system and how animals got their names. They listened to a Native American story about how animals got their names. Another activity involved the students in the discovery of a new species, of which they created a picture and a scientific name for the new species. The students learned the Latin adjectives used for livestock species and followed up with breeds. The students enjoyed viewing the livestock breed slideshow and practicing their animal terms. The students each selected a livestock breed that they will research and create a presentation to share with the class. They ended the week with an animal term game.