Teens grow cultural awareness with farm tours, exchange

PALMER — Middle school students from any community know food is essential, whether they subsistence harvest, farm or get all of their foodstuff from the local store. But two groups of teenagers have a new perspective on economy and culture, thanks to the annual Colony-Angoon cultural ex-change.

For the past three years, Dale Sweetser, a sixth-grade teacher at Colony Middle School, has conducted an exchange with students from the maritime village of Angoon, 55 miles southwest of Juneau. Sweetser takes selected students to Angoon for a week, and then the students from Angoon join his students at Colony for a week.

During the week in Palmer they study several different aspects of culture, including subsistence. To expand the education of the students, a Division of Agriculture staff arranges farm tours, which enable them to have hands-on experience and to see the various ways farms operate.

The farm tours, which foreshadow Alaska Agriculture Day on May 6, included visits to VanderWeele Farms in Palmer, Triple D Farms in Wasilla and Domer Family Farm in the Butte, all coordinated by Alaska Division of Agriculture’s Patricia O’Neil. Prior to their farm tours, the students got an introduction to agriculture playing Alaska Agriculture in the Classroom’s Alaska Ag Game.

“Each generation seems to become more removed from agriculture,” O’Neil said. “I feel it is important for any and all students to visit farms and have hands-on experience, so that they can understand where their food and farm products come from, as they are the future leaders of our nation.”

At Domers’ the students helped fill small pots with soil for growing vegetables; they viewed the potato packing process at VanderWeele’s; and they handled young poultry at Triple D.

Participating students were Angoon’s Nadja Gamble, Dominique Demmert, Matthew Parkin, Jamil Guanzon and Garrett Jack, along with teacher Amy Crawford, and Colony’s Frankie Swihart, Mariah Bohanan, Katheranne Kerr and Ema Reuter.