Heather Giger Wins 2018 Teacher of the Year

A few years ago, while attending a conference in Tupelo for teachers of gifted students, Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation (MFBF) 2018 Teacher of the Year Heather Giger had an epiphany.

“A representative from McDowell Farm School spoke to us,” she says.  “I have a farm background, so I was excited to learn they are using their farm to teach kids about agriculture through field trips, workshops, retreats and summer camps. I knew I couldn’t bring my students to visit their farm.  It is too far away.  So, I decided instead to bring the field trip to them.”

Heather, who was teaching fifth-grade gifted education at Oak Grove Upper Elementary School in Hattiesburg, began incorporating a vegetable garden (mainly greens) and a lamb into her teaching efforts. The kids quickly became enthusiastic about agriculture, the garden grew and the animal inventory increased, from the single lamb named Cotton, which the kids bottle fed and watched grow, to goats, a pig and lots of cackling hens.

“I grew up out in the country in Marion County.  My dad had horses, and my uncle had cows.  I took farming for granted,” Heather says.  “I was amazed to discover that most of my students didn’t know where their food comes from. I was humbled to see how excited they became about agriculture. I also discovered that adding agriculture to the curriculum was a great way to teach them math, science and language arts.”

And then one day something even more remarkable happened.

“We had an art position become available at Oak Grove, and I applied for it. I wanted to utilize the garden and animals in a way that all of the students could be exposed to them, and Ag Art was the result,” she says.  “Beginning in 2015, I went from teaching 48 gifted students to teaching 750 fourth- and fifth-graders.”

Ag Art, by the way, is a combination of ag science and art.

“Through the Ag Art program, I might teach my students about the different parts of a chicken, and the art lesson that would go along with that would be Picasso’s Rooster,” Heather says. “Or we might study horticulture then go out into the garden, harvest some of the vegetables, bring them back to the classroom and draw them.

“When the lesson was about pork, we talked about the large bronze sculpture of a pig named Rachel that is the unofficial mascot of Pike Place Market in Seattle, Washington,” she adds. “We also cared for our own small pig.

“As we took care of our chickens, we gathered eggs and the students took some of them home with them. We also encouraged people to send us their broken eggs shells, which we dyed different colors and used to make mosaics … like medieval mosaics.”

The Ag Art class opened up other interesting doors.

Not only were Ag Art kids learning science and art, they were learning economics from bankers who spoke to their class.  They learned the importance of good hygiene — how to clean their hands and feet when they come back inside after handling the animals or working in the garden. Chef Rick Wallace of Jackson and Chef Katie Dixon of Hattiesburg spoke to the students about nutrition and healthy eating. Pete Rutland, a Mize watermelon farmer, talked to them about growing watermelons.

The students grew their own watermelons and even held a watermelon festival!

Other school districts and ag organizations took note of Oak Grove’s Ag Art program, and Heather was invited to speak to various groups, including last year’s National Ag in the Classroom Conference and this year’s state Ag in the Classroom Workshops.

In addition to being named MFBF 2018 Teacher of the Year, she was named the Mississippi Association of Conservation Districts’ Teacher of the Year and was presented the Mississippi Alliance for Arts Education Thad Cochran Distinguished Agriculture & Art Educator award.

Oak Grove and its Ag Art and fitness programs received a $96,980 grant from Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi Foundation for the 2017-18 school year, the first time a grant of this type has been awarded to a Mississippi elementary school.

“My students learned from Ag Art, but I also learned from the experience,” she said. “It made me very passionate about teaching kids to appreciate agriculture.  Wherever I go, I enjoy teaching the value of fresh food and where our food comes from.”

Longleaf Elementary School in Hattiesburg is Heather’s current school, and she says she is excited about the possibilities.

“The principal is supportive of incorporating agriculture into the curriculum for fifth-graders, especially the farm-to-table aspect,” she said. “It is all that I ever wanted.”

Heather appreciates that Farm Bureau has helped her spread the word about what she is doing.

 “It’s important to try to get agriculture into our fifth-grade science lessons,” she says. “At first, this seemed a little crazy.  But it works.”