Thank you to our club sponsors: Maria Avila, Monica Montalvo, Michelle Plank, Diane Storch and Angela Winemiller.

The Stone Lakes Elementary Agriculture Program is designed to teach students about agriculture, food, and animal sources. Through these subjects, our agricultural educators teach students a wide variety of skills, including science, math, communications, and leadership. A combination of classroom instruction and applied agriculture experiences outside of the classroom build the foundation for an awareness and understanding of agriculture and animals.

The Agriscience/FFA program allows each student to develop knowledge of and experience in agricultural occupations by participating in inquiry based hands-on learning in one or more of the following domains: animal science, plant/soil science, ornamental horticulture, aquaculture and agriculture business management. We achieve this by planting and growing vegetables and ornamental plants in our school greenhouse, maintaining an aquaponics system on campus and caring for both livestock and small animal species. These experiences teach our students valuable skills such as responsibility, understanding real world issues in regards to our food supply, communication and career-based skills in the agriscience industry and the leadership qualities necessary to succeed in life. We give back to the community by hosting many events throughout the year such as fundraisers, dog washes and petting zoos at local elementary schools. To learn more or participate, contact your school for more information.

The Forsyth Woods garden project is a combined effort between Ms. Jacqueline Pavajeau, VPK teacher and the University of Florida’s Family Nutrition Program. The goal of the VPK program is to provide students, parents, teachers and the school community members with hands on environmentally friendly and reality-based learning experiences by working together to plant, grow and harvest a variety of organic and nutritious vegetables.

Stone Lakes Elementary: Ms. Dana shutters [led] her 1st grade students at Stone Lakes ES [who] participated in Food Waste Prevention Week by discussing how much food is wasted in their community. Later, the students enjoyed playing a sorting game as it gave more awareness of what was saved, shared, or composted. The final activity consisted of taking students outside to show them how composting works on their own campus!

Avalon Middle School: Congratulations to the following art students, Ava Carampatan, Diana Hurtado, Ava Gentry, Andre Reyes, and Maria Smirnova who painted rain barrels. They will be featured at CityArts and UCF Celebrates the Arts. Thank you to Ms.Salt for all of her support.

Lake Nona High School: Congratulations to Kylin Olinger for winning the OUC Rain Barrel Contest!

Colonial High School: On Saturday, April 1, the Florida FFA Food Science and Technology Career Development Event (CDE) state championship finals were held at the University of Florida. A preliminary round was held earlier in the school year with 59 middle school and high school teams competing with the top 10 middle school and top 10 high school teams earning the opportunity to compete for the state championship.

Students had to demonstrate skills in food sensory evaluation, food safety and food quality. Additionally, the team had to make a presentation on an assigned scenario and were required to include food nutrition knowledge, food cost analysis, food production and target food marketing. The teams also had to take a comprehensive exam covering the food science and technology industry. This CDE is designed to promote learning activities in food science and technology related to the food industry and to assist students in developing practical knowledge of principles used in a team decision-making process.

We are excited to announce that our Colonial HS FFA earned 3rd place in the state high school division (first image}. In addition, we want to congratulate our students that earned the 2nd Place State Honor in the Environmental Science and Natural Resources CDE (second image).

Avalon Middle School: Congratulations to Abigail Regenstein, Inika Monah, Kayla Bullock, and Elizabeth Park who competed at the state finals in the Floriculture Career Development Event (first image). In addition, we are proud of the Avalon Middle School FFA students who participated in the Central Florida Fair Livestock show (second image). Congratulations to Ms. Long for this outstanding achievement, and thank you for all of your hard work and dedication to this program.

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