Green Certificate

Being an agriculture kid has a lot of advantages, not just by living out in the country but also in school. Something that I have found incredibly beneficial to my grades and receiving credits in my high school years is the program Green Certificate.

Green Certificate is a program designed for high school students in grades ten to twelve. It involves studying things in the agriculture business like cow/calf, feedlot, equine, sheep, swine, bee keeping, and dairy. There is about three tests to take for each category. Through out the school year there is three testing times that you can take these tests.

I am recently taking the cow/calf category. I am almost done and have taken two tests on it, with one to go! Each test I take is worth a whole six credits, that is more than one average high school option course is worth in one semester! This means once I'm done taking the cow/calf category I will have a total of 18 credits!

Now for a little bit on how the Green Certificate works. First of all you need a teacher/instructor that is very knowledgable about the subject that you are learning and can give you a hands on experience. Mine is my dad and we work on our own farm. This means that a high school student who does not even live on a farm or does not raise the animals you are taking tests on can also study and test as long as they have an instructor in that area willing to teach them! Once you have covered the area in the book that you are studying and feel confident, I go to Olds College to take an oral test with a trained tester. They than evaluate and ask me questions and grade me on how well I did. Than once you pass the credits come pouring in!

I feel that being a kid that lives on a cow/calf operation has helped me a lot and made this testing very easy. But still I have learned way more from just doing this program than I have ever learned before. I feel way more advanced in the cow/calf operation especially with antibiotics and treating sick animals. It's great that doing something that I do on a daily basis is going to help me graduate. That i get to use my knowledge of skills on the farm to test and receive high school credits is absolutely amazing. After I am done cow/calf I will be taking on the Equine unit. I feel very fortunate that my school offers such a program as Green Certificate!

For more information about Green Certificate this is the Government website check it out!
http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/grc6643