Teachers connect with teaching, agriculture at Henricus Historical Park

It was a bit of role reversal Thursday at Henricus Historical Park in Chesterfield County.

For a few hours, teachers became the students as they learned lessons of history and agriculture that they can take back to their classrooms to share with students.

"One of the things I am very impressed with is that they provide us with lessons you can … integrate into your core curriculum areas," said Annie Phipps-Smith, a second-grade teacher at Madison Elementary School in Caroline County.

Phipps-Smith was among nearly 20 pre-K through fifth-grade teachers from the Richmond region to attend the Agriculture in the Classroom summer workshop at Henricus Historical Park.

The program armed educators with activities to provide their students with a better understanding of such topics as where their food comes from and the state's natural resources.

Agriculture, Virginia's No. 1 industry, can extend across all subjects. In one activity Thursday, teachers planted a "garden" to calculate perimeter and area size. It can also teach measurement as students space "seeds" to maximize growth potential of fruits and vegetables.

In another exercise, the teachers mapped agriculture products based on the state's five regions using an enlarged outline of Virginia on a shower curtain. Tammy Maxey, a former teacher and administrator in Amelia County, said it is using real-life applications in agriculture "as the content to teach methodology."

The educators enjoyed their role as students. During a morning tour of the historical park, Barrett Wright, a special education teacher at Ecoff Elementary School in Chesterfield, re-enacted deer hunting with a bow and arrow much like the Powhatan Indians did.

"I want to be able to explain more about the history in Chesterfield County, how things that are here in the county can fit into our curriculum," Wright said. "I want to be able to connect real-life stuff with my kids."

Henricus is a living-history museum in Chester that re-creates the second successful English settlement in the New World. In September 1611, Sir Thomas Dale sailed from Jamestown up the James River to establish the Citie of Henricus in what is now Chesterfield County.

But there is more than just history in the park. It also sheds light on early agriculture in Virginia, said Margaret Carlini, education supervisor at Henricus Historical Park.

"From the beginning, Henricus played a really important part in land use, setting up cash crops, the movement in the farms and farming agriculture," she said.

Many of the lessons the teachers experienced are connected with state Standards of Learning, but also go much deeper.

Sarah Glass, who will be a fifth-grade teacher at Ecoff Elementary this year, said that as an educator and parent, it's good to see that these lessons can take a student beyond the SOLs.

And taking students out of the classroom into the environment around them is also beneficial, she said.

"I really love the outdoor classroom, getting kids more involved in nature. I think kids are nature-deprived," she said. "They don't spend enough time outside; they don't understand the relevance of nature to what they are learning in school."

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