Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) Programs consist of.....
Entrepreneurship - The student plans,
implements, operates and assumes financial risks in a farming activity or
agricultural business. In entrepreneurship programs, the students own the
materials and other required inputs and keeps financial records to determine
return to investments. An SAE Entrepreneurship program provides students the
opportunity to develop the necessary skills to become established in their own
business or gain employment. Traditionally, agricultural education programs
consisted of ownership of supervised agricultural experience programs in
livestock and crop production. Today, with the expansion of the agricultural
industry and declining number of farmers and ranchers, the nature of
entrepreneurship programs has changed. Entrepreneurship programs can be
developed in agricultural sales and services, forestry, marketing,
horticulture, agricultural mechanics, agricultural processing and other areas
of agriculture in addition to production agriculture. Examples of
entrepreneurship activities include: growing an acre of corn, operating a
Christmas tree farm, running a pay-to-fish operation, growing bedding plants in
the school greenhouse, raising a litter of pigs, owning and operating a lawn
care service, or as a group of students growing a crop of poinsettias.
Placement - Placement programs
involve the placement of students on farms and ranches, in agricultural
businesses, in school laboratories or in community facilities to provide a
"learning by doing" environment. This is done outside of normal
classroom hours and may be paid or non-paid. Students keep records as to hours
worked, type of work activities performed and wages. Examples of placement SAE
include: working after school at a farm supply store, placement in a florist
shop, working on Saturdays at a riding stable, working in the school greenhouse
after school and on weekends and holidays or placement on a general livestock
farm
Research - As agriculture has
become more scientific, there is a need to conduct research to discover new
knowledge. There are two major kinds of Research SAE programs.
Experimental - An extensive activity where the student
plans and conducts a major agricultural experiment using the scientific
process. The purpose of the experiment is to provide students
"hands-on" experience in verifying, learning or demonstrating
scientific principles in agriculture, discovering new knowledge. and using the
scientific process. In an experimental SAE, there is a hypothesis, a control
group, and variables are manipulated. Examples of experimental SAE activities
include: comparing the effect of various planting media on plant growth,
determining the impact of different levels of protein on fish growth, comparing
three rooting hormones on root development or analyzing the effectiveness of
different display methods on plant sales in a garden center.
Non-Experimental (analytical) - Students choose an agricultural problem that is
not amenable to experimentation and design a plan to investigate and analyze
the problem. The student will gather and evaluate data from a variety of
sources and then produce some type of finished product. The product could be a
marketing display or marketing plan for an agricultural commodity, a series of
newspaper articles, a land use plan for a farm, a detailed landscape design for
a community facility, an advertising campaign for an agribusiness, and so
forth. An analytical SAE is flexible enough so that it could be used in any
type of agricultural class, provides valuable experience and contributes to the
development of critical thinking skills deemed so important in education today.
Each student in
the agricultural education program should have an exploratory,
entrepreneurship, placement, or research SAE or a combination of these. They
provide experiential learning activities that will help students learn more
about agriculture and can lead to establishment in an agricultural career. In
addition to these major SAE activities, there are two minor components of a SAE
program--improvement and supplementary activities. These minor components, of
and in themselves do not comprise a SAE program, but they can be valuable
supplements to the SAE program. A comprehensive SAE program will include both
improvement activities and supplementary activities.
Exploratory - This type of SAE is
appropriate for beginning agricultural students but is not restricted just to
beginning students. This SAE activity is designed primarily to help students
become literate in agriculture and/or become aware of possible careers in
agriculture. Examples of exploratory SAE activities might include: observing
and/or assisting a florist, Interviewing an agricultural loan officer in a
bank, preparing a scrapbook on the work of a veterinarian, growing plants in a
milk jug "greenhouse", assisting on a horse farm for a day, attending
an agricultural career day at the university, or preparation of a research
report on food science careers.
Improvement - Improvement activities
include a series of learning activities that improves the value or appearance
of the place of employment, home, school or community; the efficiency of an
enterprise or business, or the living conditions of the family. An improvement
activity involves a series of steps and generally requires a number of days for
completion. It may or may not be related to the major SAE activities. Examples
of improvement activities include: landscaping the home, building or
reorganizing a farm shop, computerizing the records of an agricultural
business, overhauling a piece of equipment, or renovating and restocking a
pond.
Supplementary - A supplementary
activity is one where the student performs one specific agricultural skill
outside of normal class time. This skill is not related to the major SAE but is
normally taught in an agricultural program, involves experiential learning and
does contribute to the development of agricultural skills and knowledge on the
part of the student. The activity is accomplished in less than a day and does
not require a series of steps. Examples of supplementary activities include:
pruning a fruit tree, helping a neighbor castrate pigs, cutting firewood with a
chain saw, or staking tomatoes.