WOODBURY — Katie Gorman’s agriculture production class welcomed McKayla Thomas to Nonnewaug on Nov. 25 to process a pig carcass. After finishing school, she decided to take on the task of breeding, raising, and processing swine. With her business, Weekeetreemee Farm, she has had several years to learn a lot and has been able to share her experiences with others.
Gorman opens the doors for Thomas to come in to be able to show her students where ag can take you after school as well as just simply showing students new experiences.
“At its heart, it’s an opportunity for you guys to learn with somebody other than me,” says Gorman. “I know how to process a pig but you guys also get instructions from me all the time. Having someone from the community come in and show you how it’s done and share with you their expertise gives you guys a different learning experience.”
Kyleigh Paige is a senior in Gorman’s ag production class this year. She had the opportunity to take part in this pig processing last year with Thomas. This year she took a different approach and in a way where she took what she learned last year and applied it to this year to be able to test her knowledge.
“I really enjoyed the chance to see this process again,” said Paige. “Since I did see it last year, it’s nice to go back to something and re-evaluate it, and that’s what we got to do with pig processing.”
Students are able to get a hands-on experience where they are not just sitting and watching but instead are actively helping and learning.
While students are able to take this as a learning experience it also gives Gorman a chance to step back and take a different look at her lessons as well.
“One thing that this lesson allows for is getting [my class] to engage in the community more, as well as giving [Thomas] more exposure for her business,” said Gorman. “But I also think the other aspect is that we are not in the normal setting in the classroom. In the food lab, there are so many tools running and band saw running and knives, it is really easy for something to get missed in terms of safety. So when McKayla is there and running the lesson I get to focus more on the safety of my students.”
This lesson single-handedly provides so much for the students in terms of experiencing so many things and Gorman will continue to allow Thomas to come in and show her expertise while allowing students to take away new information.
