by Blair Eberhardt-Ladd ’04

Tonya Myers ’97 has taken her teaching career down a new road, in more ways than one. As the first science teacher for a traveling classroom sponsored by the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, she has found herself driving down new roads almost every week.

She brings her mobile science laboratory to a different school district each week and works with 25 to 30 classes before moving on to the next stop.

Interested school districts pay to have the lab come. Each day, five or six classes come inside to do science experiments. “Students love learning through experiments and activities,” Tonya said. “They get to learn so much more because they lived the experience. They get the same benefits of a field trip without leaving their school.”

It is easy to see why Tonya enjoys her job so much. The traveling classroom setting allows for more freedom to engage in hands-on learning with her students while stressing the importance of agriculture.

Students from kindergarten to high school seniors participate in the lab. The lab, a 32-foot trailer, is equipped to teach students about the importance of agriculture and how it affects them personally in their everyday lives. Teachers choose the curriculum from a number of choices and are trained in the subject matter before the lab comes to their schools.

Tonya was teaching a course at Penn State called Agriculture in the Classroom when she was chosen as the project’s science teacher. Previously she taught for six years in the Chambersburg School District.

This was the first year for the pilot program and it has been so successful, the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau is busying outfitting an additional mobile lab to be ready for use in the fall.