Cambridge FFA wins national honor for Spanish-focused project

INDIANAPOLIS — A program designed to teach elementary students about agriculture and connections to the Spanish culture earned the Cambridge FFA Chapter a national award at the 97th National FFA Convention & Expo.

The Cambridge FFA Chapter won the Premier Chapter: Growing Leaders award for its Día de la Agricultura program.

“It is extremely rewarding and very exciting to be the national winner,” said Ellie Doubet, chapter vice president, of the national award. “We are very proud that all our hard work paid off.”

“We developed books so we could teach them, about the Spanish culture and how it relates to agriculture,” said Cambridge FFA member Addie Jewett.

The FFA members created different lessons for first through fifth grades that featured pumpkins, corn, sheep, softball gloves and a Day at the Fair.

“For the pumpkin lesson we talked about how pumpkins are grown,” Jewett said. “And for a fun activity we put pumpkin seeds in a plastic bag to show the kids how the seeds germinate.”

“For the Day at the Fair, the lesson was about all the opportunities in our local communities like showing livestock,” said Jolene Blackert, president of the Cambridge FFA Chapter. “After reading the book, we made butter because that is a local staple at our fair.”

The softball glove book focused on how livestock like cattle are common in Henry County.

“We talked about how livestock can contribute materials for our daily lives such as softball gloves from hides,” Blackert said.

“We also related how different cultures have different activities like football,” Jewett said. “We have football, but they have soccer, which they call ‘football,’ and they both use the hides.”

In addition to reading the Spanish books, the FFA members made piñatas for each of the five lessons.

“That was a fun aspect for the kids,” Doubet said. “Not only did they break the piñata and get candy, it also showed them a celebration that is important to the Spanish culture.”

Advised by Trenton Taber and Haley Gruber, the Cambridge FFA members are planning to implement a similar project this year.

“This year we are going to implement the same activity because it was so successful,” Doubet said.

The FFA members plan to focus on some different topics.

“Instead of Spanish books, we’re going to do Spanish vocab words,” Doubet said. “We’re going to give the words to the students a couple of weeks prior to us coming to teach them, so they can practice the words.”

And the event this year will include piñatas.

First graders will learn about pollination and flowers, and second grade students will learn about soil layers and the piñata will be a worm for the upcoming project.

“For third grade, we’re going to make a cow piñata and the lesson will be about butter,” Doubet said. “We’re going to do a similar activity about growing pumpkin seeds with the fourth grade students and we’ll have a pumpkin piñata.”

Fifth grade students will learn about the migration of butterflies from America to Mexico.

“We’re going to make a butterfly piñata and highlight agriculture by talking about the timing of the migration and the flowers that are grown for it,” Doubet said.