The Importance of SAE visits.

Throughout high school I had numerous SAE projects while being an active FFA member  that 100% were livestock related. Growing up in my small town and being active in 4-H gave me the livestock care background in order to take care of my projects the best I could. However, 4-H did not give me the record keeping skills that SAE's  give students. Yes, we had to do budgets and a few records but it was simple because you start at the age of eight, which many at that age are still developing their writing skills. With these SAE projects that I had that ranged from dairy beef to goats my agricultural teacher would check my books to see if I kept them up to date and just take a look at my animals. Going through numerous teachers nothing was the same and some did not even look at our books. I was never really taught the proper way to fill them out and anytime I needed livestock I searched out other resources.

When I mentioned doing an SAE visit with m cooperating school I got the "Well we do those on a need be basis." With that said while I visited over the summer we scheduled two SAE visits with students which were completely different from another while one being familiar and the other not so much. The first student was a boy who thrives and has a passion for restoring John Deere farm equipment and is currently working on a combine. The second was two sisters who live on a dairy farm and use their work as one SAE along with showing dairy beef and raising chickens where they sell the eggs. Through out the visit many questions were asked but here are a few that stuck in my mind:

1. What is your goal/purpose for this planned SAE?
2. What is your next step?
3. What do you expect to get from this like working towards degrees and proficiency awards?

By Mrs. Anderson and I conducting these visits I got to see what an actual visit is to consist of. Mrs. Anderson even made the comment how she needs to do more visits because you get to know the kids and their family on a personal level. Even though I for one know nothing about farm equipment we were talking about washing all the grease off and how the student was scraping with a nail. Automatically I was like blue dawn dish soap cuts through grease. You realize that even though you might not be an expert you can help them find the resources needed to succeed with whatever they want to put their passion into.