Tucson Standard

Teacher Craig Bal added an outdoor classroom to a local school's agriculture program.

Bal is an agriscience and precision manufacturing teacher at Tanque Verde High School in Tucson, according to KGUN.

"We built a barn, land lab facility, all the corrals, the horse-riding arena, [and] squeeze chute," Bal said.

The teacher will add chicken coops, picnic tables, and stalls for other animals, KGUN reported. School officials hope that students in the agriculture program can raise cattle and sell the meat. Bal's students will learn new skills such as roping, welding, and livestock evaluation through hands-on experiences.

"On the front side is the outdoor classroom [and] we do have a projector and ... screen, so I will have PowerPoints up, but we'll talk about animal parts," Bal said. "Then, we walk over and we go to the animal parts – okay, there's the brisket, there's the hindquarters, there's the flank."

The students built the barn, according to KGUN.

"That was pouring of concrete that finished three weeks ago and the barn came the next day, and the kids built it in two and a half weeks," Bal said.

The students will learn how to care for horses, as well.

"We've gone over saddling and shoeing," student Malina Travis said. "So, we learned how farriers put shoes on horses and the different tools that they use."

Students are encouraged to try new things, Bal said.

"I just learned how to weld when everyone else started welding, but I practice ... during lunch after school, so I kind of learned how to do it pretty quick," student Michael McKenna said.

The value of the program goes well beyond report cards, KGUN reported.

"We are producing the next engineers, the next food safety scientist[s], we're producing [the] next leaders of the free world, but we're also feeding the world at the same time," Bal said.