- This week on Wisconsin Life:
Meet a teacher whose classroom is a barn,
a woman who uplifts her community
through language and dance,
a creative sculptor...
of paper,
meet a composer who creates music for television.
It's all ahead on Wisconsin Life!
*
- Funding for Wisconsin Life
is provided in part
by Alliant Energy,
Lowell and Mary Peterson,
and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.
- Hello, and welcome to Wisconsin Life.
I'm Angela Fitzgerald.
I'm at West De Pere High School
exploring urban agriculture with students and faculty.
This Brown County high school
partnered with a local non-profit called The Farmory
to bring aquaponics indoors and into the classroom.
Aquaponics is a growing system that combines aquaculture--
which is raising fish--
with hydroponics or growing plants in water.
[gurgling water]
Both the plants and fish benefit from this system
as the wastewater from the fish gets processed,
then pumped up to the beds,
becoming food for the plants.
[snazzy music]
As part of the school's curriculum,
students get hands-on experience running the aquaponics system
and have the opportunity to share their harvest with peers.
We'll check out the growing system
and greenhouse here later on.
But first, we head to Medford to see
how a teacher brings agriculture and animals
into the classroom.
*
- Main Street in Medford looks like many rural communities...
home to the Taylor County courthouse...
and is surrounded by farm country.
- Medford is fairly rural.
- So, maybe it's not surprising when you walk into
Lisa Kopps' high school class that you find this.
[chirping]
- If you have a chick right now,
can you perch it on your finger?
You can see how they have the desirable instinct
to just want to perch.
- I did not grow up on a farm.
Ever since I was little,
I had a really big passion for animals.
Chicks are flock animals, right?
- It's a passion Lisa passes on to her students,
and most of them didn't grow up on a farm either.
- I'll have a class of about 25 to 30.
Only about 2 to 3 kids are still on that production farm.
So youth, even in this rural community,
are almost two generations removed from that farm.
- Putting these kids back on the farm...
is just steps away from their traditional classroom.
- All right, hey, you guys, let's go to the barn.
- It's a really fun thing to be able to come to school
and know that, "Hey, you're going to the barn today."
*
- This is the Medford High School barn.
- They're expected to be over here when class starts
and they get back to the building
when their next class starts.
- We have chickens,
a calf,
pig,
sheep,
rabbit,
and one cat. [scratch]
They're very comfortable with us.
Hi! - There you go.
Loosen it and get it over two ears.
- Lisa saw the problem...
- If we expect farmers to continue
in this next generation,
we need to teach them.
Good job!
- And the solution. - Good girl.
- We need to show them what tasks,
literally, need to be done
to be that farmer.
This is our bull calf we have here at school.
It's more engaging for students to learn
if you actually have the animal.
And this barn is engaging.
[bull calf whuffles]
- You can put some more feed into here.
Good job, girls
- Chicken: Tuk-tuk-kah.
- They have to collect eggs every day.
Chickens,
they lay eggs about every two days.
And we need to go collect those.
We sell those at school.
They get a grade for doing chores.
That's part of their class expectations:
that they wear rubber boots,
and they get in there and use a pitchfork,
and they feed them, they water them,
and they move them around, they lead them.
Walk him down the road, stretch his legs a little bit.
- It's a lesson most of these students won't get at home...
or anywhere else.
- Lisa Kopp: This project is extremely unique.
There are not a lot of schools that have a farm.
So, the farm itself is run by high schoolers.
It's owned by the district.
- As the number of Wisconsin farms continues to dwindle...
Lisa sees this hands-on classroom
becoming all the more important.
- And just get used to that being on her head.
Yep, so if you want to put it on her feet.
- We consume vegetables, we consume meat,
and do you know where your meat is coming from?
- We need to show the students that
"Hey, some of these tasks-- raising sheep, raising pork,
raising beef cattle--
you can do on a small scale at home."
This is Marvin.
He's a red and white Holstein.
And he is growing really well.
There are so many life lessons
that can be learned on a farm setting.
And I'm trying to replicate that farm setting here,
in this school farm.
- If one barn is good,
two barns must be better.
- We're building a new barn
where my classroom will be next year.
So, we're going to have to already expand the barn
that we just finished building
because of the student numbers going up,
and the demand for another Ag teacher.
Can you see how, over time,
the lamb, it's kind of getting it?
It learns to not fight it,
is relaxing a little bit more.
- Lisa sees it as securing the future for farming
and the community that rallied around her dream.
- Oh, my gosh.
The Medford community has been so helpful.
And they do see the need for this education
because a lot of the youth are not on the farm.
They're not thinking of these career paths and their future.
- I actually donated six pigs to this project
because I feel strongly about it.
I'm really happy that she made it happen.
She's such a huge role model.
- It is for our next generation.
And if we don't show them how to do these things,
they're not going to do it.
- Our next story takes us
to a composer's studio in Janesville
to see how television finds its rhythm.
*
- I've always wanted to do this.
Just always been drawn to it.
I love it so much.
When I'm just creating,
it just comes.
It just, you know, just goes out.
Then I don't think very much about it.
Well, when you tell somebody
that, "Yeah," you score film,
"That I make music for film and television,"
it's kind of like,
"Well, you're not in Hollywood, so I don't understand that."
Like, "How are you doing that from Janesville, Wisconsin?"
*
I think there's...
a picture of me in a little sailor suit,
and I'm like two years old, at the piano.
I've just always been drawn to it.
I love it. I was obsessed with this.
I was constantly at the piano.
I had a little TV that had
a video player in it,
so I would actually put it right on top,
and I would watch movies and compose,
and then try to sync them up, and then rewind the videotape,
and then press 'Play,' and then watch it.
I would do that all day.
I just always wanted to do music for film.
I thought it was so important the role that music has
in any film.
I started reaching out
to a bunch of music supervision agencies,
and just email after email,
and it started to happen.
And so, I started getting busier and busier and busier.
And I...
You know, I'm so responsible,
I turned some of these huge--
these unbelievably huge gigs down
because I was in school, pursuing social work.
So, I think I got some opportunities
for the Super Bowl one year, but I decided,
"Well, I've got this paper that's due tomorrow.
And so, I'll probably just do the paper."
You know?
And so I turned some of these opportunities down,
and then I realized later on
that that's a crazy thing to do
and that I should totally go full into this,
and, you know, 100% jump in and pursue my dreams.
One of the most well-known ones,
of course, is the Super Bowl spot that I did,
and that was featuring Kim Kardashian
in a T-Mobile commercial.
*
- These are the batteries.
The tab makes it super simple.
- I did one that was about hearing aids.
- How does that sound?
- [man exhales audibly]
- Duracell saves the day.
[with great emotion] - I think so... That's amazing.
- [almost inaudibly] "Thank you."
- Now with Wisconsin From the Air ,
it's a little different.
There's not a lot of dialogue,
so the music can't hide beneath anything.
It's pronounced.
*
It's out in the front, you know?
It's right next to the picture,
so you have to treat it differently.
We're trying to guide,
you know, the viewer
to feel certain emotions
or to,
I don't know,
solicit certain responses.
So, my job then is to take the tones,
take the feelings
that the producer, the editor, the director
were going for,
and then have it make sense for the actual film.
[majestic instrumental]
I like the rushing to create something awesome
overnight
and send it out because
you don't have time to think, you don't have time
to pick everything apart and be a perfectionist.
I think that's cool,
and I like that.
But I think
what I'm really going to be trying to get into
is doing more scores
because I love the accomplishment
of creating something grand .
- I'm at the greenhouse in West De Pere High School
learning about urban agriculture and aquaponics.
This is the aquaponics system students maintain
as part of their curriculum.
I got a chance to learn more about their program
and how it all got started.
The idea for an aquaponics system in a high school
started with an important local partnership.
Agriculture teacher Jeff Neuser knows that history.
- So, the aquaponics system
that we have here at West De Pere was created,
through a partnership, by The Farmory.
So, The Farmory is a local organization
that wanted to do a movement for
to help answer the global food crisis.
- Claire Thompson of The Farmory explains more.
- A big component of our program is education.
We work with youth groups.
We work with school districts,
high school and elementary school districts,
university and technical colleges,
to try and expand STEM
and agricultural education
opportunities to those youth.
As well, we provide job training and education opportunities
to adults
through internships, apprenticeships,
and volunteer opportunities.
We started with the kernel of an idea.
The concept is downstairs in our first pilot test system.
We have a second system at West De Pere High School,
which we refined our ideas and our materials and our processes.
And now we're planning a build out of this facility,
which is a 20,000-square foot former armory building.
- Much like The Farmory,
the aquaponics program at West De Pere High School
continues to grow.
- So the future is awesome
because this system is brand new.
It is fairly new to the industry
and we are working out kinks with it.
The whole industry is trying to figure out ways
to better the involvement of it.
So, we have done everything
from growing the different types of microgreens
to using it in our culinary program
to one day, hopefully, be able to produce enough
to use in our lunch program.
And one day, maybe even be able to create enough
that we could sell and create a local market.
[snazzy music]
- Teachers aren't the only ones excited about opportunities
this food system offers.
- So, what do you do?
What is your role within the system?
- We trim down the microgreens when they get tall enough.
We keep them stocked for
the nutrients from the fish waste
within the system.
- So, I heard that The Farmory was coming in
and they offered to bring it to our school
and I thought it was a really good idea
and interested me. - Nice!
Well, how does your school plan to use the microgreens
that are grown?
- Currently, we use some of the microgreens
in our culinary arts classes.
And then, soon we want to get to the point
where we can use some of the microgreens and the fish
in our lunch program at school.
- Wow, so providing some tasty treats to students.
- Right.
- Tasty treats that might spark
a lifetime connection to food.
And what are your next steps, your plans once you graduate?
- I plan to go to Platteville as of now for Ag Education
so, to be an agriculture teacher.
- So, coming full circle. - Right.
- It takes a lot of hard work
to bring these delicate plants to life.
Now, we leave the plants behind
to meet an artist in Algoma
who finds inspiration
from the world around her.
*
- And I'm gonna go right to the bottom
and come across the bottom and lift it straight up.
- For most people, paper is paper.
It brings the news or carries a message.
- Actually, you can see how the paper really glosses itself.
It becomes very, very shiny
because all the fibers are lining up and lying down.
- If people connect it to art, it's that paper can contain it
in the form of a drawing
or a story
or music notes on a sheet.
For Kirsten Christianson, paper is art.
- Okay, now I'm gonna snap it on one side,
tap it like that so it comes off the screen,
and lift it.
And there it is and that's a good sheet.
I know that when I'm making the paper
it's going to develop into this creative thing.
- This is not a hydraulic press,
but it's a pretty darn good press.
- Most paper comes from trees
cut down and trucked to the mill.
- Should had a pine branch in there.
- For Kirsten, paper comes from old rags,
flax,
and cattails by the river.
[water swishes]
- A combination of cotton rag,
what's called abac�, which is banana leaves,
that are very...
have really strong, long fibers.
- Paper can bind us to our daily reality:
to-do lists and work reports.
- If anybody sees a stack of handmade paper,
it isn't like newspaper.
You know, it's so different.
The texture, the thickness,
the size, the shape.
- For Kirsten, paper is uplifting,
- Well, I think paper is meditative:
the craft of it,
the rhythm of it,
the all-absorbing quality of it,
and yet, it's very light,
- Especially compared to her early work.
- My medium was carving stone,
and I loved marble, particularly.
- She remains a sculptor, but now with paper.
- I was rethinking things,
wanting to be lighter and more buoyant about my life.
*
- Buoyancy is a repeating theme in Kirsten's life...
- Yes, boats, and water, and wind,
and just that thing of being out in the water
and having, you know, no tethers or anything.
- She loves to sail
and lives in Algoma, near Lake Michigan.
- Well, I love the sound of the water.
- But I think there's something to water;
looking into depths
and seeing layers and reflection,
and color reflected in the water.
[swishing water] I'm just going to stir it a little bit.
I'm just going to move over here a bit
and then get right in front
and then I'll...
I think that it builds a dialogue with you.
It's you and your hands, and the water,
but the fiber, and if you're using natural materials,
that is really a dialog.
It isn't just you.
- For most people, paper is flat.
- My background being sculpture,
I like to cast with it.
- Kirsten uses her old techniques
and her new paper medium
to make art that comes alive and seems ready to float away.
- It's called, "Canoe Aloft."
- Even when working in two dimensions,
her ideas reach beyond the edge.
- When I'm doing that flatwork.
I am creating that paper, but it doesn't stay flat for long.
I mean, in the sense that you're building layers.
So, there is a dimension to it.
- I'd love to have extensions beyond the four corners,
the four sides.
- For most people, paper is a means to an end.
For Kirsten Christianson, paper is a process,
with endless possibilities.
- So, paper is...
I think it is innovative.
You're making it,
and then you think, "Oh, I could try this.
"I could add this.
How would this work?"
Oh, it's very rewarding... very rewarding.
- Art can be a personal journey
or it can bring people together.
That's what we discovered in Madison
where a woman works to connect her community.
[Children singing in Hmong][tambourine]
- If our kids know who they are, they're happy with who they are,
they don't have to ask themselves this question,
"Do I want to be American or do I want to be Hmong?"
- On a warm spring night in Madison,
kids dressed in traditional Hmong costumes
perform for a captivated audience.
[clang, clang]
It's a celebration of a project started by Mai Zong Vue
along with her husband, Peng Her.
And it may the only one of its kind in the country.
- Tcha! - Ha.
- Remember to make the "h" come out.
[children annunciate in Hmong]
- Yeah.
- The Hmong Language and Culture Enrichment Program
resembles a full-time school.
- We have close to 60 kids this year.
Six to thirteen.
Yeah, all the cute ages. [chuckles]
- This six-week program immerses students in Hmong language.
[student speaking Hmong]
- And Hmong culture.
- That's before the wedding, right?
- Mai Zong helped launch the program in 2013.
It was a direct response to Madison School District data
showing Hmong students were doing poorly.
- As parents, we were just shocked.
What's going to happen to this community?
And what's happening to the legacy
that our parents left us?
*
- Mai Zong's family came to Wisconsin
when she was 14 years old.
- Our parents taught us to work hard.
They fought in the war because they believe in freedom.
And made lots of sacrifice to bring us here.
People like myself, I call it the "1.5 generation."
- The children of this 1.5 generation
have only known America.
And they have to reconcile two different worlds.
- In the Hmong community,
we value families and communities as a whole.
And that can be complex for our kids
who don't understand our culture.
They're raised to be quiet and be respectful
but then at school, they're not being noticed.
- Anything else you want to share?
- I would feel kind of, like, scared, embarrassed, maybe?
- The kids having that sense of belonging,
working with people that understand them.
I think makes a huge difference
in terms of that eagerness to learn
and that desire to go to school.
[teacher speaking Hmong]
Yes?
- How do I say, like, I'm wearing...
- [teacher speaking Hmong] - Girl: Okay.
- Ready? Go, go, go.
[laughing]
[speaking Hmong]
[teacher speaking Hmong]
[student speaking Hmong]
[teacher praising child in Hmong]
- The Hmong Language and Culture Enrichment Program
is designed to address the academic
and identity gap for Hmong children.
It does it with a combination of paid staff
and a steady flow of volunteers, often former students.
- I really just want to give back to my community
and help these kids learn more about themselves
and their identity.
- Make new friends, get to know each other,
make them realize that
they have a bigger family than just themselves.
- And the program is having a real impact.
- I feel a lot more confident talking about
myself and my culture ever since I've been here.
- I feel like I could show my Hmong
instead of holding it in.
- I'm very proud of what I'm doing.
I'm aiming for and hoping that
this legacy that
our parents left will blossom
because we fed it through our children,
who can pay it forward to the rest of the country.
- I've definitely learned a lot about what it takes to grow
delicate produce in an urban environment.
If you'd like to learn more
about the West De Pere High School aquaponics program
or any stories you've seen here today,
visit WisconsinLife.org.
And we're excited to tell you about a new project
set to launch November 22nd.
Wisconsin Life Food Traditions
is a multimedia exploration of food traditions and identity
found throughout our state.
Here's a sneak peek.
Wisconsin is very important to me.
It's a part of who I am.
Growing up as a Mexican Wisconsinite,
as a Mexican American,
you're always stuck in an in-between
because you don't know if you fully belong
to like the Mexican background or to the American background
or what that even means.
There are many commonalities between
my hometown in Mexico
and my hometown here.
We share the love of cheese,
and hopefully someday, here in Racine,
I am able to open an Ag business
in which people from my hometown
can produce artisan cheese
and coexist and share this cheese at the cheese fairs
with other Wisconsinites.
I continue to hold these transnational ties
that connect me to the land here and there.
So, for me, home is...
both.
- As always, we want to hear from you
so send us your ideas at WisconsinLife@wpt.org.
Here's a look at next week's show:
[bell rings, engine rumbles]
- Choo! Choo!
- Just keep it full throttle all the way through.
- Wow!
- A must-see destination:
Whoo, that's pretty!
- The drum has taken me all over the world.
- People have this stigma around handicapped dogs,
and it is such the opposite!
[engine noise]
- This is perfect. - I love it.
[engine engages, laughter]
An all new Wisconsin Life
next Thursday night at 7
on Wisconsin Public Television.
I'm your host, Angela Fitzgerald,
and this is our Wisconsin Life.
Eat well!
So, now some people may know what microgreens are.
I personally don't.
So what are microgreens exactly?
- A small leafy plant. [both laughing]
- Funding for Wisconsin Life
is provided in part
by Alliant Energy,
Lowell and Mary Peterson,
and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.