Growing STEM: Rhodes State offering classes through Ag REACH program

COLUMBUS GROVE, Ohio (WLIO) - The agriculture industry is one of the largest in the state of Ohio. The USDA Census of Agriculture reported a total of $15.4 billion in market value for agricultural products sold from the Buckeye State in 2022.

With those numbers and the future of agriculture in mind, Rhodes State College has a program in place to educate the public. It's called Ag REACH and is funded through a three-year grant from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

"We’re offering industry-recognized credentials to high school students and community members at no cost to the school district or to the students themselves," said Danielle Banks, Ag REACH program director for Rhodes State College. "We have a market that’s just for high school students, so we come to their classroom and we teach them right here, but we also offer community courses. We’re looking to offer a community course this summer where anyone from our community can come and be a part of that, and that’s also free of cost."

Some of the topics that Ag REACH will cover include receiving a part 107 remote pilot certification for drones, and participants earning a professional credential in grain testing.

As the farming population in the state continues to get older, those with Rhodes say that educating the younger generation may help keep the agriculture industry alive.

"We all know that some of our producers are of that older generation and we just don’t have the younger generation to take over, so coming in and exposing them to the industry at a younger age helps us capture those students that maybe aren’t from an agricultural background, but we’re sparking that interest in the industry early on," Banks said.

Students at Columbus Grove High School say they've been excited to get a look at different areas of agriculture through this program.

"It’s just something that I’ve always been interested in ever since I was young, I've been working with my grandparents and my parents on the farm and it’s just something cool to learn about," said Colton Sumney, a senior at Columbus Grove High School.

"The whole thing with the commodity testing has been really cool to learn about and the whole drone thing is cool too," said Keelie Langhals, a senior at Columbus Grove High School. "We do it at home too, my dad owns the business this year, so getting that certification will also help him in his business and that’s been really helpful. We're learning about the other side of ag that I don’t get to see at home - we have cattle and pigs and stuff at home all the time, so this is something else on the other side that we don’t normally see, it's kind of cool to learn about."

To learn more about the Ag REACH program, you can find more on Rhodes State's website: https://www.rhodesstate.edu/academic-affairs/ag-reach.html