For CMR’s agriculture teacher Jodi Koterba, agriculture involves much more than just farming.
“It is a huge industry that we are trying to incorporate into our school,” Koterba said. “It’s been very interesting to talk to the community because most of them think of agriculture as cows, plows and sows.”
Though a brand new course this year,  agriculture  is far from being boring.
The course follows a curriculum that covers seven major subjects in agriculture, including natural resources, animal sciences, power structures, and agricultural business.
“It’s a fun class,” senior Josh Pecukonis said. “We get to research and do a lot of activities that you normally couldn’t do.”
The course not only allows students to gain knowledge in these areas, but it also applies to real life situations such as building and maintaining a school greenhouse, building composting bins that are being installed in several schools in Great Falls, as well as mixing soil and playing a farming game that simulates real world agriculture situations.
“A lot of the students are hands-on learners, and we try to make our activities hands-on,” Koterba said.
Twenty-six students are currently enrolled in the course, but students believe it may be on the rise.
“I think this class will be successful; people just don’t know what it really is,” Pecukonis said. “People think it’s a farming class, but you learn a lot of real life lessons.”
Koterba agrees.
“The nice thing about the agriculture industry is that it covers a whole spectrum of dollar values and skill levels,” she said. “There are very manual labor jobs; there are also some intense engineering jobs and everything in between.”
Koterba said that she is disappointed in the enrollment numbers despite the fact that Montana is heavy in agriculture.
“Montana is having trouble keeping young adults in Montana,” Koterba said. “Even though the jobs are there, our kids are just not prepared for them, so I would like to provide the students the opportunity to know what jobs are out there.”
Koterba also noted that just driving from CMR to GFHS there are 19 agricultural business, including western Ranch Supply and Pasta Montana.
The course was originally pitched as an academy, meaning that the entire course projects would be linked to all of the students’ core classes, but due to low enrollment numbers the academy concept was set aside for now.
“That is our goal,” Koterba said. “To get to the point where we’ve got this articulation between the students’ major subjects.”