By Julie Tomascik
Associate Editor
Curious students fill the classroom where intriguing lessons plans await them. And a teacher, passionate and patient, takes them on a journey of agriculture.
One that includes field trips, experiments and hands-on activities. Opening a new world—of questions and understanding.
Because Michele Knauf, a fourth grade teacher at Sacred Heart Catholic School, has a different kind of classroom. With an agricultural background, Knauf knows the importance of connecting students with an industry they’re far removed from. Even in the small community of Muenster.
Her efforts to incorporate agriculture in the classroom earned her the Agriculture in the Classroom Outstanding Teacher award from Texas Farm Bureau (TFB).
Nominated by Cooke County Farm Bureau, Knauf will accept the award at TFB’s 82nd annual meeting in Arlington in December.
“My whole life has been centered around agriculture—growing up on a farm as a child and marrying a farmer and rancher and moving up here to this area,” Knauf said in an interview with the TFB Radio Network.
She teaches all core subjects—math, science, social studies and reading. And agriculture comes to life in each.
From creatures in the classroom to outside activities, Knauf exposes her students to agricultural concepts—soil, life cycles, plant growth and more. And her students inspire it all.
“I am always looking for new ideas, and many times it is the children who find them for me. Then, we experiment some more,” Knauf stated in her application.
For many years, the class had a wildflower garden. The students, along with Knauf, worked the ground, applied mulch and planted the seeds. They would water the seeds and anxiously wait until spring to see the fruits of their labor.
To better understand soil, the students bring in samples from different places. They study the permeability and discuss what grows in each soil type.
And agriculture even finds its way into their reading assignments.
“In reading, one of the main chapter books that we go through—and we’re doing it right now—is Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder,” she said. “It talks about farming in upstate New York during the 1860s.”
The book offers a chance to compare farming methods then to those now used in modern agriculture.
She brings to class her antique butter press and samples of pork crackling—both are part of the book the students are reading.
“They love it. They just thoroughly love it,” Knauf said. “In fact, they’ve asked me to take them to our little town museum to see what they might see there that we have been reading about in Farmer Boy.”
Last fall, Knauf even had an aquarium full of tadpoles and a bin full of mealworms. The students watch the life cycles and discuss the roles each play in the environment.
But there could be more creatures in the classroom at any time. Because Knauf encourages her students to bring in any creatures they deem appropriate to observe.
The learning doesn’t stop there.
Two microscopes and boxes of prepared slides are available for students. But Knauf understands the value of self-discovery. And lets the students study their own items, like leaves, insect parts and even their own blood.
At least twice a year, the students hatch chicks in an incubator. But they’re all different breeds, sparking discussion among the students.
She’s even brought in cotton plants from her uncle’s South Texas farm. The Cotton Belt, the Texas cotton industry and its effect on the economy—jobs, products and more—become part of the curriculum.
“I just mainly get a very good feeling of helping these children realize where we have come from and where we are going,” Knauf said. “They just thoroughly enjoy knowing what life is really like, and not just in their own little area, but elsewhere.”
And breakfast cereal is brought to the classroom. Because it offers a lesson in iron.
They make an iron cereal soup by adding a large amount of water to the dry cereal. Once the cereal gets soggy, the mixture is placed in storage bags. The students, with magnets in hand, try to draw the iron particles to the edge.
As much fun as the students have in class, they take their excitement outside to a local dairy. Silage, milk quality, biosecurity, storage and the milking proc