Food science and meat science are two popular and common classes and contests for high school agriculture and FFA students.

The way some Dixon High School agriculture students recently learned about those topics is an example of how Dixon ag teacher Grace Klein employs hands-on learning and finds topics to hold students’ attention.

It all started with a trip to Missouri.

“My boyfriend has land in Missouri where he hunts. Before he left, he shot a buck and he was panicking the night before because he had two front quarters that he didn’t know what to do with,” Klein said.

Klein doesn’t hunt but enjoys the processing of the deer into different cuts and products.

“I said I’ll talk to the principal and see if I can bring them to school and process them with the kids,” Klein said.

After asking her students if they wanted to undertake the project and getting permission from school administration, DHS ag students learned about food safety, meat safety, food handling and nutrition, while Klein cut up and processed the front deer quarters.

“We compared it to the cuts of meat in cattle, and they got to grind their own hamburger and learn food and meat safety. They calculated the percentages of fat and protein. Then we froze it and prepared it, and they got to taste it during class,” Klein said.

Klein said she was surprised when students were unanimously in favor of the project.

“They loved it. I thought there would be some of them who would say, ‘Oh gross, what are we doing?’ I asked all of them, and all of them wanted to do it,” Klein said.

The hands-on learning and finding out what students want to learn exemplifies how Klein is approaching her first year of teaching and teaching agriculture. The DHS ag program has about 93 students and continues to grow.

“It’s finding those classes that are something that piques their interest and finding those classes that they really enjoy. A lot of people want to make the program how they want it to be but it’s a lot of give and take. You have to adjust your program to accommodate student interest to get them involved and get them excited. Once you have them hooked, they are going to stay around,” Klein said.

Klein’s path to teaching agriculture inspired how she teaches her students, giving them options for learning and understanding that her students learn in different ways.

Klein graduated from Amboy High School, attended Joliet Junior College, and then Illinois State University.

“My second semester of my junior year at college was when COVID hit. I struggled with online schooling. I’m a very hands-on person. So I took a semester off and came back home,” Klein said. She previously worked as a veterinary technician at the Amboy Veterinary Clinic and went back to work there.

“I planned on going back to college, but I loved being a vet tech so much that I didn’t go back,” she said.

When the agriculture teaching position in Dixon opened up, Klein decided to give it a try.

“The Lee County Ag in the Classroom coordinator, Katie Pratt, called me and said, ‘Go teach.’ She is the one who got me involved in wanting to be part of ag education because I had Ag in the Classroom with her when I was in school,” Klein said.

With hours from her college coursework and experience from her work as a vet tech, Klein was able to obtain a Career and Technical Educator License to teach. That license requires a combination of relevant work experience and college class hours.

Klein teaches animal science, veterinary science, horticulture and greenhouse management. She plans to introduce food science and fish and wildlife management classes next year.

“We did a natural resources section in intro to ag, and the kids loved it,” she said.

Klein said that although she was nervous about teaching in a larger high school, her first year at Dixon has been surprising and reassuring.

“I was concerned about getting students to get involved who didn’t have a background in agriculture. This year has been so much better than I was anticipating. I have students from all kinds of backgrounds in our program, and this program continues to grow,” she said.

Klein and her students are practicing the FFA’s “Living to Serve” motto by making uncrustable-style sandwiches for students to take.

“We have a population of students who don’t have as much access to food at home as other students. So they can come in my classroom or the social workers’ room and take a sandwich,” she said.

Klein has other plans to grow agriculture education and the FFA program at Dixon High School, but there is one area she has her eye on, specifically the IDOT road signs that mark achievements by students and school teams.

“I want to get started with teams to get them established so we can start getting our names on the banners. I want a sign with our name on the way into town,” she said.