Engagement, wonder, and soybeans

By Matt Reese and Dale Minyo

Engagement and wonder are incredible tools for learning, and soybeans facilitate both in the classroom.

Science teachers gathered in January at the 2025 Science Education Council of Ohio (SECO) Symposium, seeking new ideas to engage students in their classrooms. The event featured a session on growing soybeans with students. GrowNextGen teacher leader Erica Hitzhusen, who has been working on in-classroom soybean production with her students at Worthingway Middle School in Worthington on the north side of Columbus, facilitated the session.

“My first-year soybean project was inspired by a GrowNextGen teacher that I met here at the conference last year. We started with germinating the soybeans to get engagement and wonder, because a lot of my students don’t have any experience with growing anything. Then we went into a GrowNextGen e-learning course to teach students about why we even care about soybeans, especially in Ohio,” Hitzhusen said. … Continue reading