Trenton High School vocational agriculture class earns MDC regional partnership award

TRENTON, Mo. ­– Each year, the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) highlights valued community partners in regions across the state. This year, in the northwest region, MDC recognizes Sadie Stimpson and her vocational agriculture class at Trenton High School for providing students with meaningful, interactive outdoor experiences.

“Sadie Stimpson and her class partner with MDC on projects that make conservation relevant to the students,” said Nate Mechlin, MDC private land conservationist. “This partnership creatively engages the next generation of Missourians and allows them to use, enjoy, and learn about our natural resources.”

In 2020, Stimpson’s class established a pollinator garden plot on the school’s campus. Students prepared the bed and planted 41 wildflower species. Stimpson’s class continues to maintain the plot each year. Each September, MDC staff help lead a pond management class with an electrofishing demonstration, and the department joins with Trenton Gun Club to hold a weeklong shotgun training unit each October.

Many students’ favorite unit comes every December, when MDC staff and local volunteers teach the basics of trapping. Along with two days in the field running trap lines and harvesting animals like raccoons, beavers, and muskrats, students learn about the laws, ethics, and various methods of trapping. This class culminates with the annual Beast Feast, a wild game sampling buffet prepared by MDC staff.

“In our conservation class I strive to bring real-world opportunities to life,” said Stimpson. “Most students are never given the chance to explore the different avenues conservation has. Whether we are working on our pollination station, cooking up wild game for our Beast Feast, or shocking a landowner’s pond, our students are immersed with hands-on skills that not only teach science and stewardship, but prepare students to be informed, capable caretakers of our environment.”