Teaching program helping meet Green Industry's growing need

Story & photos by Stephanie Schupska

Meredith Carey glances over a list of plants after giving the ones in Greenhouse 13 a good soaking. A University of Georgia agricultural education major, Carey is learning teaching principles in an environment much like the one where she’ll soon be teaching.

Two hours away from Athens at Ola High School in McDonough, Ga., Chris Stripling's high school students are growing plants in a greenhouse almost identical to the one Carey is in.

Carey and Stripling are touched by a program aimed to help meet the booming needs of Georgia's $765-million green industry. By qualifying more teachers in greenhouse management, UGA and the Georgia Department of Education are inspiring the next wave of plant scientists, landscape workers and plant growers.

"We start by training high school teachers, who then inspire the brightest students in horticulture," said Paul Thomas, a horticulture professor with the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

Thomas and Teri Hamlin, a DOE horticulturist and public school liaison, teach greenhouse management to Carey and other UGA ag education majors through the CAES Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communication.

Eric West gives plants a good soaking in Greenhouse 13 in Athens.

That's how Thomas and Hamlin enhance the greenhouse knowledge of students who will become agriscience teachers.

Stripling has his bachelor's in agricultural education ('05) and agricultural leadership ('06) and is already a teacher. In his classroom, students analyze proteins, take plant tissue cultures, do DNA sampling and prepare a year-end food science project. This year, they plan to recycle their fish tank's nutrient-rich water to grow vegetables hydroponically.

"Agriscience allows you to go where the student interest is," Stripling said.

Through horticulture classes in high schools and middle schools, "the greenhouse program now reaches an average of 25,000 high school students per year," Thomas said.

More than 300 teachers keep those students on track. Some have extensive greenhouse management training. Others had barely set foot in a greenhouse when they took their first teaching jobs.

To reach those "green" teachers, a week-long summer program on greenhouse management was started in 2000. It covers "not only the subject matter but also how to operate and manage the facility," Hamlin said.

UGA's ag education program now turns out 15 to 20 teachers per year. The summer greenhouse program trains 25 to 30 existing teachers annually.

To prepare their teachers adequately, Hamlin and Thomas needed a greenhouse that wasn't decades old. Through more than $110,000 in donations, they made it happen. "Anna Ball, president of Ball Horticulture, stepped up and handed us a large check," Thomas said. "And from there, the DOE and CAES filled in the matching funds."

With Greenhouse 13 in place, the partnership between UGA and the DOE was cemented. "It's the only program in the nation like this," Hamlin said. "The DOE that serves our secondary schools and the university system that serves postsecondary schools have worked together to develop a program that will serve teachers who serve students."

Hamlin and Thomas are finding it really does take a village — or, in this case, the Athens-Clarke County community — to raise a proper greenhouse. Chief Jack Lumpkin, right, and Major Mark Sizemore examine a few plants illuminated by ACCPD-donated greenhouse lights.

When Greenhouse 13 needed better lighting, the Athens-Clarke County Police Department donated professional-quality growing lamps confiscated through drug busts.

"The lights allow a greater number of crops to be grown," Thomas said. "Chief Jack Lumpkin signed off on the donation. We were thrilled with the support."

Educating students is a community effort extending to the state, which offers a grant to graduating agriscience teachers. This grant will fund a new greenhouse with specifications almost the same as UGA's Greenhouse 13. It will also give a little extra help toward teachers' agriscience programs.

"By offering a horticulture curriculum, especially in urban areas, we're helping prepare students for the green industry, which is a huge industry around the country," said Dennis Duncan, a CAES assistant ag education professor. "There's a big demand for students with training in that area. There aren't enough teachers to fill the need. There are more jobs than people, and the salaries are very good."

In his second year of teaching, Stripling has had to turn students away. The demand for his class mirrors the demand for agriscience teachers statewide. In north Georgia alone, Hamlin helps 30 new teachers. In their first year of the greenhouse management program, she said, these teachers "have a better handle on how to manage 28 students in a greenhouse lab. If you can manage your students, you can teach them."

For Chris Stripling (BS – Agricultural Education, '05 and Agricultural Leadership, '06) and his students at Ola High School, class combines reading, writing and arithmetic with a good helping of agriculture.

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