Seventeen-year-old Amanda Padilla grooms her Dorper lamb — a variety originating in Africa — for an upcoming weekend livestock competition. Amanda and the Dorper are not alone in the sprawling shed barn. There are other high school students, roughly 50 at this moment, tending to an assortment of noisy, well-nurtured, spotlessly clean cattle, lambs and goats. 

Future agriculturalists in the making.

It is a decidedly unfamiliar-to-Arlington/Metroplex urban ambiance, but there it is: The 23,000-square-foot AISD Agricultural Science Center at 3210 W. Pioneer Parkway technically resides in Dalworthington Gardens, but the AISD includes all or parts of several municipalities.

The ag center itself is a satellite of the Dan Dipert Career and Technical Center located a couple of miles east off Pioneer Parkway at Browning Drive, both of the campuses being relatively new. The ag center was built in 2017 as part of a voter-approved bond package.

Of the approximate 55,000 students in the AISD — right now about 350 per semester and 500 per school year — are interested enough in a future in agriculture or its peripheral occupations to sign up for classes at the center. It’s more complicated than just farming or ranching.

The startup principal for all of it was Ginger Polster, who is still at it.

“The agriculture learning cluster includes a diverse spectrum of occupations, ranging from farmer, rancher and veterinarian to geologist, land conservationist and florist,” Polster said. “It also includes nontraditional agricultural occupations like wind energy, solar energy, and oil and gas production.”

If it sounds like the agricultural industry has gone high tech in recent decades, your observation would be on target.

The ag center building is itself a unique example of multiple use and sustainability. There are air-conditioned classrooms and enclosed equipment areas, but the rest of the building is roofed with open sides, and an array of pens and stations filled with cattle, lambs and goats. Overhead fans keep the warm air of Texas circulating. There’s an open expanse of green south of the structure, a pasture of sorts, for walking the animals and for planned future expansion.

The building has a roof mounted solar panel designed to achieve net-zero energy for the facility, a wind turbine and rainwater collection tanks. There are multiple animal pens — 52 for sheep or goats, 14 for cattle — and support areas, two agricultural science classrooms, a metal shop, an office and restrooms.

“The building’s solar panels produce more electricity than the facility uses,” Polster said. “Every drop of rainwater is collected and stored. The livestock waste is used for compost and soil enrichment throughout the district.”

The barn pens are now fully occupied with livestock, and there’s a waiting list. The program is popular.

Projects of the welding and metal fabrication shop now show up at campuses all over the district.

Some of the ag center’s students, Polster notes, have projects off-campus with smaller animals, currently mostly chickens, rabbits and turkeys. The ag center makes it possible to work with larger animals, not that easy a task in urban, zoning restricted neighborhoods.

Some of that instruction, says first-year ag center teacher Zoe Baskerville, is directional and introductory: For example, geology or wind energy. Some of it leads to professional certification, testing for which is the same as for the adult population. Occupational certifications at the ag center include a welding/metal fabrication lab, floral design (Baskerville’s specialty) and veterinary technician. “Raising a livestock animal is a major responsibility,” Baskerville said. “We expect them every day, every morning and evening, to come and feed and tend to their animal.”

Some of the students, like Amanda, plan expanded careers in the world of agricultural commerce after high school graduation.

Amanda reflects on that as she works with her lamb in the center’s arena.

“I’ve always been interested in animals,” she said. “My goal is to eventually be a veterinarian specializing in large animals, and working at the center will give me much of the same kind of hands-on experience with livestock a farm kid would have.”

The ag center, Polster notes, continues to expand its programs. Some students, for instance, prefer an academic track more plant-oriented, horticulture or floriculture.

“There are plans to expand the facility, which would include a large outdoor garden area, like fruit and nut kinds of trees, greenhouse growing and the like,” Polster adds. “A lot of our kids and their families don’t come from any sort of farming background. They may come from the inner city, and they just want to learn.”

O.K. Carter is a columnist at the Arlington Report. You may contact him at o.k.carter@arlingtonreport.org.