Pranav Hooda standing and giving an interview appears. Text on the bottom left reads, "Pranav Hooda. Environmental science SAE, Bergen County Academy FFA, New Jersey"
My name is Pranav Hooda, I go to Bergen County Academy High School, and I'm in the Bergen County Academy's FFA chapter.
A lab technician places a piece of a plant on the dish placed on a weighing machine, closes the machine, and switches it on. The lab technician is wearing laboratory attire.
An SAE is a way for a student to get involved in agriculture and get a hands-on experience while still under the supervision and guidance of a mentor.
The lab technician cuts a piece of a plant. Later, an article with a title which reads 'Hydroponics and Sound: the Effect of Sound Production on Hydroponic Plant Growth' appears. The title is written in a big bold font below which the text that reads, Pranav Hooda appears. A graph in the article is highlighted.
I do a research SAE, so I conduct a research project and my research project is relating to hydroponics and making that a more viable option for farmers, more profitable, so that we can capitalize on the environmental benefits of hydroponics and really fuel the transition from conventional agriculture to hydroponics which is more sustainable.
The lab technician places the cut pieces of a plant inside a drying machine and takes the dried pieces out after some time. Later, a board with some data written on it appears followed by Pranav Hooda, standing and giving an interview.
I learned a lot about how to work in a lab, how to grow plants, and like how hydroponics works. And I also learned a lot about the general process of research and how research papers are written, the different people that play roles, and just one research project. And I also just learned a lot about agriculture and like the way our country grows food.
A greenhouse appears. Later, back-to-back clips show different views of the plants in the garden.
You definitely don't have to grow up on a farm to start an SAE. Since I didn't grow up on a farm and I have done an SAE, and I think that, especially in the area where I live, there isn't a lot of agriculture. It's a very urban area. So, I think that many of the people who do SAEs in my area haven't grown up on a farm.
Pranav Hooda standing and giving an interview reappears. Later, the lab technician pours some liquid from a beaker into a test tube and places the test tube in its stand. Then, he smashes something in the small hand grinder and takes the plunger out from the grinder. Then, a laptop screen displays a graph in an Excel worksheet alongside two columns of data labeled Control and Experimental. The bar graph is titled as, ‘the effect of sound waves on biomass of lettuce’. The graph is drawn with average mass on the x axis versus treatment along the y axis. Control goes up to 0.1 and experimental goes up to 1.4. A value is added in the control column. The lab technician works on the laptop. He takes some liquid from the test tube using a pipette.
I certainly think that doing an SAE can help you with confidence and time management because, personally, I have struggled with time management in the past. But having an SAE and having those hard deadlines really taught me to kind of ration out my work more as it is a lot of work, and it's not something you can do last minute like a homework assignment. So, you kind of have to set other deadlines by yourself and really organize your time more efficiently. Especially with research, there's a lot of things that you have to be doing at once. So, I certainly think it helped me with my time management. And when presenting my SAE, I really practiced a lot of public speaking, like, learned a lot about like confidence. And so yeah, I definitely think it helps with confidence and time management.
Pranav Hooda standing and giving interview reappears. Later, the lab technician holds two test tubes containing some liquids in his hand and looks at it. Then, he places the test tubes inside a centrifuge, closes it and switches it on.
My advice I would give a student who's just starting out in ag. is to kind of forget about all the stereotypes or preconceptions that you might have about agriculture because it really is a diverse and broad field. And there are so many things that are entailed within agriculture that I hadn't thought of in the beginning. And I really learned how broad of an industry it is and how many different jobs there are in the industry. It's not just farmers as the stereotype may be. There's roles for people who want to do like business, law, medicine, there's really a place for everyone in agriculture.