Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Last week, the New Rockford-Sheyenne School District announced a new partnership with the Carrington Research Extension Center (CREC) to bring a unique opportunity to students.
The CREC is offering a year-long field experience to upperclassmen at NR-S, giving them an opportunity to get hands-on experience in the agriculture industry while getting paid and earning high school credit.
A “student research proposal guide” shared by the school details what the opportunity entails and what would be expected of participating students.
Specific content areas include agronomy, crop disease management and animal science – and each has a number of different projects that students could help with.
In the area of agronomy, for example, there are field projects such as a seeding rate study and an intercropping study.
The seeding rate study aims to determine the effect that seeding higher or lower plant numbers per acre would have on yield and return on investment for various crops. The intercropping study, meanwhile, aims to determine the effect of seeding two crops together, such as soybean and canola.
The students’ expectations change depending on the content area they’re working on, but all three include hands-on work which is paid, as well as homework and a final project.
"This is a real world, research based field experience with industry experts in a curricular area that promises tons of employment opportunities in our area," said NR-S Superintendent Jill Louters about the field experience.
The partnership with CREC was made possible by the NR-S school board’s recent passing of a new policy – Policy GACG – which allows businesses and organizations to submit similar proposals for NR-S students to work with them and gain experience.
The NDSU CREC proposal has been approved by the NR-S school board, and Louters said they’re now “waiting for guidance,” from the Department of Public Instruction.
When it was passed, the school board expressed excitement for the potential opportunities that Policy GACG could create for students, and Louters said two more proposals are currently in the works.
"This opportunity builds another bridge between school and community; not only meeting the needs of the workforce, but providing real work, hands on application to each student's plan of study at a very economical cost to the taxpayer," said Louters.
