Many different animal classes are offered through the Suffield Regional Agriscience Program such as Floral Design, Advanced Plant Science and the newly added Animal Behavior and Training class. Animal Behavior and Training is an extremely interesting course that covers various topics such as how and why animals react in various environments, famous experiments with animals, and famous scientists who helped develop the knowledge and methods to help us train animals today. If you like large animals or small (companion) animals, this class covers a little bit of both leaning into a large unit of dogs at the beginning and then closing with a unit on horses, cows, pigs, and other livestock species.
I spoke with the teacher of the class, Mrs. Ferguson, who has been teaching ECE for almost four years and more generally serves as a Agriscience Teacher at Suffield High School. Mrs. Ferguson also served as a President when she was enrolled in the Agriscience program. She teaches a wide range of courses, the most well known being Veterinary Science (I, II) Companion Animal Science (Academic, and ECE levels), and Animal Behavior and Training (Academic and ECE levels). She also teaches freshman and sophomore Ag classes (Ag 1 and Ag 2). The Animal Behavior and Training course requires a semester long project that asks students to train an animal.
When asked about the teacher’s perspective on the class, Ferguson mentioned “it shifted a few things. Uconn doesn’t require as much [preparation] for the Companion Animal class as it does for the Animal Behavior and Training class.”
The Animal Behavior and Training class requires a semester-long project where you need to train an animal to perform three commands. The project is designed to align with class material and the numerous training labs that are provided throughout the year.
I also spoke with Suffield High School senior Katie Duncan, who had a main interest in floral and is currently enrolled in the Behavior and Training class.
When discussing the semester-long project Katie stated, “I ride horses and am currently teaching one to smile.”
Katie has a diverse background in Ag. She served in a state winning Career Development Event Team. She also took many floral classes and is now taking the Animal Behavior and Training class.
“I exhausted all the floral classes. I also thought it would be fascinating to learn about animal behaviors” Katie mentioned later in the interview.
The course is organized into different topics. The beginning started with how animals learn best which leads into behaviors. It requires note taking skills but also allows students plenty of time to grasp material before giving unit tests.
Animal Behavior and Training is a very fun, hands-on opportunity for agriscience enrolled students!
