Buzzing with excitement: White Oak High offers beekeeping course
JACKSONVILLE, Onslow County — A new course is coming to a high school in Jacksonville, and it's got the students buzzing. At White Oak High School this spring students will have the option of taking a bee keeping course.
The students kind of dove into it and its expanded mostly because of their interest.
For 16 years Brandon Dillman has taught at White Oak High School in Jacksonville while also leading “The Green Team,” a program dedicated to environmental awareness.
We usually meet after school on Fridays, but they wanted more so we afforded them that opportunity.
Which is now known as the AP Culture and Anthecology course, which is and upper-level science course with one main objective.
The whole goal or purpose of this program is to make them North Carolina certified beekeepers when they leave this course.
The program started as an after-school program in 2017 and expanded from there. Through grant funding the school was able to build a center next to their apiary. That’s also used to educate elementary students about bee keeping.
“Getting them a little bit educated early on so that they know how to approach bees moving forward," says Matthew Kendrick.
Matthew Kendrick is one of the school’s alumni students who helped construct the fencing around the building, which features several advanced tools.
“You can watch the bees and kind of learn data wise from them as well. This kind of walks them through the process of what their kinda looking for when they go in and inspect their bees," said Dillman.
The course will be available during the spring semester only, when bees are more active.
Dillman says students are required to pass both biology and environmental science, while also getting a letter of recommendation to take the course. However, he has a message for those unable to fill a seat.
They can still come out to green team on Fridays. After 'Green Team' on every other week, we come out and work with bees and they’re more than welcome.
