(upbeat music) - [Announcer] "Illinois Stories" is brought to you by The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and by the support of viewers like you.

Thank you.

- Hello, Welcome to "Illinois Stories" I'm Mark McDonald in Springfield at the Lincoln Land Community College campus in the Kreher Ag Center.

You know, Lincoln Land had a successful Ag program for many years, but this brand new 20,000 square foot, $7.5 million addition really changes things.

Bill Harmon, this has got to be exciting.

I mean, nearly 20,000 square feet of new space and all kinds of new equipment for the kids to learn really hands-on right.

- Oh definitely.

- If you're gonna be a farmer, and you're gonna be in agriculture, this is what you're gonna to do.

- Yeah, and at any aspect of the industry, whether you're gonna be in supply, sales, service, we're giving them the skills they need to go out and be successful on the job.

That's really, what's all about.

- Of course, this is a sort of a meeting or an entrance hall right here.

It gives you the spacious feeling that you want and it sort of brings the outdoors in, but the kids aren't gonna be spending a lot of time here.

They're gonna be spending- - Exactly.

- A lot of time over here, right.

- Yep, after they make it through the entrance, some conference rooms for them to use, but then this is probably the thing that's gonna catch everybody's attention.

First off, as soon as they come into the building, the simulator lab.

The purpose of this room is to give us one place to put all of the simulators that we use in various classes, and simulators designed to let students practice, get skills developed in a safe, low cost environment.

For example, the combine simulator or the sprayer simulators for students in our Ag business or precision- - The one on the right, this is the combine?

- This is the combine simulator.

So this was sold by Deere.

And so this is a, the seat and the control mechanism out of a S Series John Deere combine.

And so there's about 10 lessons that the students work their way through.

They'll go through the lessons learn how the machine operates, learn how to harvest learn about why speed matters.

It throws problems at them, so they have to troubleshoot.

And then at the end, we can take them out next fall and we'll lease them a combine from a local Deere dealer and put them in the real machine, and hopefully, the learning curve will be much quicker.

And you know, to be fair, most our students aren't gonna farm.

A pretty small percentage are, but they're all gonna learn to use technology, and so this is a way they can learn it.

They can, how do I adapt, how do I solve a problem.

And so that they will adapt those skills and take them to their next job.

The sprayer simulator over here on this side, and this one we purchased in a partnership with Growmark.

This is about as realistic as you can get.

When the students are in this machine, they feel the bumps, the booms.

They have to know their boom width, and so they don't run it into a pole or bury it into the ground.

It teaches them basics of how to drive on the road, which is important, so that we have to be good neighbors with our, with people in the countryside.

And so how do I gauge how far over I can get?

It also has VR goggles, which the students like.

I can't do the VR goggles.

(Mark laughs) I get a little nauseous.

It puts you in the machine.

The sounds are there.

And it's a really good teaching tool in that we can take them from this.

We're gonna be leasing a new sprayer this fall.

And so after they run through these lessons, this has about half a dozen lessons, put them in that actual machine here on campus or on one of the college fields, and so then they're gonna have that skillset.

- Would this be a prerequisite for that?

You wouldn't just take a kid and put them on the sprayer?

- Right, because that new sprayer, the lease on that's gonna be $40,000.

- You don't want them wrecking that.

- I don't wanna damage that.

And so this way, if they have a wreck, and you could wreck this machine.

If you take a turn too fast, it'll roll you over in the virtual world, and you get the big red err.

And so that way they hit the reset button, they learn.

So it's safer for them, it's lower cost for the college, and it gets them ready like said, to go on the job, that's what we're here.

- [Mark] That's fascinating.

What's going on over here?

- These ladies are working, this is a virtual welder.

And so in a mechanics class, we teach welding in some of our classes.

And especially if I have students who've never welded before, and are maybe a little nervous or tentative about it, they can try it here in the virtual environment, and they'll learn the motions without the smoke, without the heat, without the sparks, and then we're gonna transfer them to an actual welder out in the workforce center on campus here, and then they can, they'll be better off and better prepared for it.

- There's a lot of welding that goes on on the farm because farmers repair and build everything themselves, don't they, as much as they can.

- Right, and a lot of our students, if they go into a job working for a local custom applicator or a machinery dealership, the ability to weld might be the difference to help them get a job.

- [Mark] I'll be darn, okay.

So really it's about jobs, isn't it?

- It is.

That's what it all comes down to.

Production Agriculture only makes up about 2% of America's population, but when you look at all those related jobs, it's up to 20%, and that's who we're really training students for is for those other 18%, so that they can go out and work with technology.

Taylor here is operating a drone.

This is a drone simulator.

And we have actual drones here on the other side of this lab.

But before I put a student flying up four or $5,000, one of these high tech ones, I want them to get used to the concept of yaw and pitch and flying it and landing it safely.

This is what the technology can do for us.

- [Mark] I'll bet these young people are already pretty adept at this kind of thing, much more than we would've been right?

- The concept, this generation, they're used to video games.

I put a lot of quarters in machines back in the day, but they're more adept to it, and it's a way they learn.

And so we're trying to reach them on their level, so that it'd be a faster process.

And like I said, just to make it, get a better end result.

- Now, they're having fun over here, but I'm not sure what they're doing.

- [Bill] This is an augmented reality sandbox.

And so this is a tool we use in a soils class, for example.

So what it is, the laptop there has that little Kinect's camera like off of a video game system, at-home system.

And it's reading the topography of the sand you see inside there.

And then the computer shoots an image onto it, an overlay that shows the different topo-lines, so the height, and also it shows the water.

So if we're talking in class about, okay, what's the terrace do, which is a soil conservation structure across the slope.

Well, we can build that.

And then you hold your hand above it, and we'll make it rain.

And then we can see, okay, where did the water go?

- [Mark] Oh, okay.

So it's about drainage, and it's about- - Exactly.

- Like I say, terracing and erosion.

- Erosion, definitely.

And so instead of it simply we're talking about it or maybe even showing them a video, now they're doing it themselves, and so it reinforces learning.

It sinks in and it lasts longer.

- Yeah.

That's exciting.

Okay, Ryan, what are we doing?

Cutting beans?

- We are cutting beans right now.

- Okay.

This is called a- - Combine simulator.

- Combine simulator, okay.

I don't hear anything.

Do you hear anything?

- No, no, no.

I don't hear anything right now.

- [Mark] You wouldn't hear anything inside anyway, would you?

- [Ryan] Well you'd hear a little bit, but it's more of just getting a feel of the controls.

Not, not exactly the sounds.

- [Mark] Have you ever operated a combine?

- Yes, yes.

- I kinda thought you sounded like you knew what you were doing.

- [Ryan] Oh yeah.

- [Mark] Is this pretty real?

- [Ryan] It is pretty realistic.

Like you said, the sounds, that's about the only thing different from it.

- [Mark] Now you have GPS on, you would have GPS on a new combine, right?

And this one does- - Probably.

- Can you set it for us?

- Yes.

- Or how would you do that?

- Yep.

So I already set my A, which is the beginning point at the other side of the field.

And I'm getting ready to set my B, once I get to the other side.

And that will give us a straight line throughout the whole field.

So once we get to the end here.

- [Mark] So you are steering it, it's not doing it on its own, you're steering it?

- Right now, I am steering it, yes.

But once I set the B, and then push the auto-steer button, it will be steering itself.

- [Mark] And what about the speed?

How do you know how fast to go?

- So, right in here is our speed.

And this is a part of it that's not very realistic because I can combine nine, 10 mile an hour, and still not do anything.

Normally you'd be combining about 4 1/2, five mile an hour.

But in this unit, you can combine about as fast as you want.

- Is there a downside to going too fast?

Do you miss some of the beans if you go too fast?

- In real life, yeah.

You'd miss a lot of the beans, and you'd be throwing them over.

But in this game, well, game, simulation, it doesn't really make a difference.

So now we are close enough to the edge of the field.

I'm just gonna go ahead and set my B.

Accept, and it's gonna ask me if I want to accept the track, and I do.

So we're gonna push this button, turn our steering on, and once I make another pass... - [Mark] Oh, that's remarkable.

Look at the visuals.

Wow.

(laughs) - [Ryan] So once I make another pass and set- - [Mark] And there's cut that we just made.

And then we just went through, okay.

- [Ryan] Push that button and now it's steering itself.

- [Mark] Okay, what happens when your combine gets full of beans?

Does it tell you when to stop and unload?

- [Ryan] Yeah, it will.

It'll tell you.

We're at 70% right now.

70% full.

- [Mark] Wow.

- And these buttons, it'll tell you everything about it.

You can have your yield information, how much, see we're getting 30 bushel acre and 20% moisture which is not, not very good, but it'll tell you every single thing that's going on with the machine.

- Wow.

Well, thank you.

- Yep.

Thank you.

- Start her up there for us, Jacob.

This is the sprayer right?

- Yes, sir.

- Have you ever operated a sprayer before?

- No, not in real life.

- Just this one, huh?

- Yep.

- Have you been doing it a while?

- Just a few days.

- Oh, a few days, huh?

You know, those sprayers, those are those things that are real high off the ground aren't they?

- Yeah, these are a little bit harder to operate sometimes.

- Hard to steer?

- [Jacob] They can be if you're not paying attention to where your booms are at.

- I kinda like it because you can look out the window and see exactly where your spray is going, can't you?

- Yeah.

- And do you use that?

Or do you use some kind of a monitor up here?

- You can use either one, if you wanted to.

- Now, do you feel anything?

Or do you feel the machine shaking or vibrating in any way?

- [Jacob] Yeah, sometimes.

- Is that a good or a bad thing?

- [Jacob] Depends on who's driving.

- Now, do you regulate the amount that you're spraying or does it do that automatically?

- [Jacob] It does that automatically.

- Okay.

And are you following any kind of a prompt here?

- [Jacob] No.

This is free handin'.

- Okay, so what you want to do is you just want to make sure that you stay on the road, right?

- Yeah, just to make sure you don't run over crops.

- [Mark] And when you get to the end of the field, do you know how to turn this baby?

- Yes, I do.

- [Mark] Okay.

Are we almost there?

- Not quite, - No?

So does it work by GPS as well?

- No, this one does not work with GPS.

- [Mark] You gotta know how to steer this one?

- Yeah.

- [Mark] That's the biggest challenge, huh?

- Yeah, definitely.

- [Mark] Does it tell you if you're destroying any crops or do you just- - At the end of this, it will give you a score on how well you did.

- [Mark] Oh, is that right?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

And do you even know what crop we're spraying?

What are we spraying here?

- [Jacob] It looks like, I'm not sure what this is.

- It doesn't look like beans or corn.

- [Jacob] No.

- Do you expect you'll ever drive one of these?

- [Jacob] I'm hoping to.

I still gotta get, I gotta go get my license for it soon.

- Okay.

Well, thanks for showing this to us.

It's okay?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

Bill, There are three active learning, are they labs?

- Yes.

- Is that what you call them?

- Mhm.

- Take me in one, will ya?

- Sure.

One of the themes that is consistent throughout the building is flexibility.

And so these classrooms can be configured for wherever we need them to be that day.

So right now this classroom is set up in a lab environment.

And so it's designed for an animal science and anatomy lab.

And so these students, one of the things that gift has allowed us to do is purchase these models.

They're not real cheap, but it allows students to get their hands on, when we're talking about anatomy, for example, of a hog.

And so looking at pictures is one thing, but when you can talk about it and see, all right, here's the loin.

And when in the, like in the judging class, when Mr. Beckmier, my coach, is talking to him, and we'd talk about the concept of back fat and why that really matters.

Well, now they can see it here in this environment.

Internal anatomy.

A lot of our students are gonna be interested in careers in animal science.

You know, it's popular, they raise livestock on their own as young people on their farm, perhaps.

And so they want to do something related to it.

Well, we want them to understand the basics of it.

And this was one way we can do that.

- [Mark] And what is she doing now?

She's got some kind of a program up on the monitor there.

- The models that we're working with also come from Realityworks, is the name of the company, but they also have software that comes along with it.

So it's got lessons that are ready, and it ties in.

So it can, everything from having the students learn to identify where the cuts are on the carcass or doing an anatomy lesson, how to reassemble this, 'cause it's kind of a puzzle to put these back together.

- And these two, what are they working on over there?

- They're looking at digestive systems of a cow.

And it'd be the same, whether it's beef or a dairy cow.

And for example, the girls have a, that's the stomach.

Cows are ruminants, and they have that four-part stomach.

And we'll talk about that in class, and the importance of it.

But now you can see it, and we can identify the different compartments and really understand what their function is.

- [Mark] And how many animals will we be able to study through this system?

I mean, you've got- - We talk in our classes, for example we'll cover all the meat animals plus horses.

So beef, swine, sheep, goats, and then horses.

They also make models for poultry.

The poultry industry in Illinois is not that large.

It moves south with climate, well, I won't say climate change.

It moves south to avoid paying for eating in the wintertime.

So Arkansas and the Carolinas.

But we do have some students who were raised in small-scale poultry, so we'll probably include that too going forward.

- So you've got three labs like this.

Are there other labs?

- There are, definitely.

We've got some really, some cool ones to show you.

- Okay.

- And this is the technology arena.

- I liked that.

Arena.

It kinda looks like that.

In fact, it looks like that like a sports bar, but- - [Bill] Yeah, the four screens hanging from the ceiling, one of our staff members on campus found that idea for us, and so we call that the scoreboard.

So, we took a basic computer lab, and decided what can we do to make it the most flexible and the most useful?

So these stations are designed for our landscape design program, for example.

They can teach the old-fashioned pen and paper design on these tilted tables.

And once they've mastered that in their second class, they're gonna learn how to use CAD or computer data drafting, and do landscape design electronically.

- And they can also not, can this be sent to the other monitors?

- We can put this up on all four of the screens.

So everybody else in the class can see it.

So for class discussion for the instructor- - So this students working on this particular project.

He or she decides to go ahead and fill in these.

And then they want to share it.

- Right.

- And it can be shared, you can see it from every direction.

- [Bill] Exactly.

- And you can have as many, what, I think 18 students working in here at the same time.

- Right.

And then if, and we do have a plotter, so when students if they print their their work, we can hang them on these whiteboards you see over here.

And then this wall behind me, that's magnetic paint.

And so we can put these traditional drawings up there and keep them for future reference.

- Okay, now, you're the instructor, and you're probably in the middle here somewhere, right?

- [Bill] They can move around.

Their keyboards floats, but what we've see right here, this is a a document camera above us.

And so if I bring in a design, for example, that was done in pen and paper, and I wanna show it to the students and explain a concept or identify a part, they can see it.

This table we're standing in front of is electrical or it'll raise and lower.

That's got autofocus in it.

- [Mark] Wow.

- We could use it for other class.

In soils, for example, if I wanted to bring it in and really point out something detailed like structure, I can set it in here.

- Yeah.

- We'll use this room for some other classes as well.

- You kinda have to be a tech whiz just to be a teacher in here because there's a lot going on, isn't it?

- There's been a lot of training going on to get us ready to learn how to use this building appropriately.

- It looks like you could do almost anything in here.

I mean, you really could adapt it very widely, couldn't you?

- Yeah.

And I think once our other, the people on campus in the other department, or other, at least in our program, Natural and Agricultural Sciences, see this, there's gonna be some interest from some of these other instructors 'cause I can see a geology or a instructor in one of the sciences like that being able to use this room with their students very effectively.

So this is the soils lab, and this was the room where we'll teach hands-on labs for Soils and Crop Science.

And so we got a number of students in here today demonstrating some of the labs that they did in classes last fall.

This room's design is we got the tile floor because soils are messy.

You can make a mess in here.

- You can make a mess, exactly.

- Sweep it right up or mop it up.

- Yep.

So that's what we're talking about.

So, for example, McKinsey here is working with a groundwater model.

We talk about not only soil health but environmental health.

And so this model demonstrates if we put products on the top soil, and we put it on either too heavily, here in Springfield, we're all concerned about nitrates getting in Lake Springfield.

And so we can see how those move down, whether it ends up in Lake Springfield, which is something we don't wanna see, or does it get down into that aquifer layer.

- That's what you really wanna avoid, right?

You don't want it in the aquifer.

- Yeah, because if we get contaminants down there, it's very difficult to get those out.

We can't just flush the system kinda like we can do with this model.

So it's a way for once again, they can see it to- - To be able to visualize it.

Sure, they'll remember it that way.

- Exactly.

Taylor and Emily.

They were soil students this year.

And so they're working with a soil monolith.

So this is a key of a soil that was pulled, and then the classes pull these or pick 'em apart with probes.

And so what they're looking at is evaluating soil color.

So soil color tells us things about the soil as far as organic matter.

It tells us drainage.

And from those we can make management decisions because that's really what we're going to, where we're focusing on soils as a medium to raise plants and we wanna grow more crops.

And so how can we do it the best way so that we maintain the soils and still improve yields?

- Now, you call it a monolith.

Is that a core?

- It's a core pulled out of the soil with a hydraulic probe, and then we lay 'em in these trays, and then we use little metal picks and pop them apart so that we can see the structure.

- [Mark] Now, is that the top?

- [Bill] That's the top soil- - [Mark] Okay, we're look at there, okay.

- So this, this is a Tenbury soil.

That's why it's fairly light.

And then we can see down and through here the different structure, the drainage in the bottom of it here.

So that gray color, which is really common in central Illinois, a lot of our soils are somewhat poorly drained or more poorly drained.

- They learn a lot from the color don't they?

- They do.

Yup.

- Yup.

- And getting their hands on it.

These students are working on some soil health.

And this is a topic that 10 years ago, we didn't really talk about in agriculture class, but today we do.

So Sam and Alexis, this is what's called a slake test.

And so we put these soil pads there or clods, and they're suspended in water.

And so what we're looking at is to see, is there a difference in how well they hold together?

So the one that Alexis put in was from conventional tilled soils.

- [Mark] That's the one on the right?

- [Bill] The one on our right, exactly.

And years and years of tillage breaks those soils apart, and so they don't have the structure, they don't have the natural glues that hold them together as well.

The one that Sam put in was from a no-till field, and it had cover crops.

And so we get those root systems- - [Mark] Holds together better.

- [Bill] And this was really eye-opening when we we're talking to, not only students, but with people in the industry.

And I have students bring in their own soil samples, and they can see, oh, maybe the way grandpa did it isn't the way we ought to be doing it today.

- [Mark] Okay, and what's over here?

- [Bill] Brailey's got another soil health test kit.

And so what we're measuring here is carbon dioxide levels.

And so we take soil samples, get them damp, put them in this jar and seal them up with that little paddle, and it's sensitive to the amount of CO2 being released.

And so we wanna see is that yellowish-green color.

If we see a soil that shows in it stays blue like at the top of that little card she's got there that means that we don't have enough soil activity.

There's not enough organisms in there respiring.

So we wanna see some yellow in this color.

Maybe not six.

We don't wanna be that high, but we do wanna be in the three, four range.

- [Mark] Wow.

- And so this brings the message home to students when we're talking about soil health, you know.

This is what we're talking about.

- Okay, Bill.

So this is the, what, animal center, the- - Animal science lab is the name for it right now.

It's really more than that though.

I call this the bonus room.

But the idea of this space is that for whatever we need at that time, it can be.

It's very flexible, like the rest of the building.

So what we're looking at here, this is my animal science instructor, Craig Beckmier, and some of his students and members of his livestock judging team.

So if he wants to do a lab where we bring in some livestock, and so the class can come down here and get their hands on it and see whatever we're talking about, whether it's confirmation or reproduction.

We've got some people signed up for the fall.

They're gonna come in and do some demonstrations on things like animal chiropractic.

We can show them here.

The technology behind there that short throw will show on the screen, so we can show the video and then go to the actual animals.

This is something we've never had before.

We're gonna do this in June.

We're gonna have an in-service for area high school Ag teachers.

And so we can set up some of these things and talk about these topics and do some training with them.

For our landscape program.

If the weather is inclement, if it's February or March and they need to build a patio like what they've done here, or a fountain, we can bring the materials in.

They can work in whatever the weather is outside.

And so it'll give them a chance to get that hands-on.

And so when they're going to get that job, they can tell the employer, "Yeah, I've built patios.

Yes.

I've worked with fountains.

I've done irrigation."

The little track, the John Deere tractor, we use that in class.

That's something else that we purchased through the gift.

Students learn how to operate it and how to operate safely.

How to do safety inspections in the morning, because a lot of them, if they're gonna be in the green industries, they're gonna be operating power equipment.

So that's something else they're gonna tell that future employer.

- A cut above the simulator, by the way, too because you have to really know how to operate that.

In extra safety, if you've got that bucket way up high, it can be kind of a challenge.

- Yes, if you raise that bucket up, your center of gravity is moved.

And so the students will understand that.

When we were doing this in class this past spring on some uneven ground, and they could feel it.

And it's like, "Okay, so now lower your bucket and drive."

Oh, it's a big difference.

And then what we're looking at here, this is a rainfall simulator.

(machine whirs) And so we talk about erosion.

But with this device, I can show the students what's going on out in the fields depending on different tillage systems.

So on the left, that corn is in what we would call conventional tillage.

And so the soil is bare and it's raining.

In the center in a no-till or reduced tillage situation, you've got all that residue on the soil surface, and then on the right, for comparison, like a hayfield or a grass waterway or something.

And so what's gonna happen is as the soil gets saturated, and it runs off the front, we'll start to see muddy water collect in these buckets.

We're gonna see a lot more muddy water on the left.

- Yes, you will.

- [Jacob] Then we go on the right.

And then the buckets suspended underneath there that shows us what's soaking through the profile, and that's what we wanna see.

We should eventually, if we came back and looked at this in half an hour, the one on the right would have a lot more water in it because it's got more holding ability.

But once again, putting this in front of students really reinforces the message.

And we use this with community education activities as well, Say right now we've a half an inch of rain.

You know, recently here in Springfield, we've had almost four inches of rain.

So the students can see what's going on.

- Exactly.

Dr. Warren, LLCC already had a pretty good Ag department.

- Yes.

- It adds substantially to it, doesn't it?

- Well, it adds substantially.

It was great, but we had very limited space.

And in fact, they were spread out over two buildings and still would not have enough space.

And we know in our area, the employers are crying out for people skilled in that area, and we needed to grow the program.

And in order to do that, we needed more space.

- This is one of the very few public learning centers that was funded by private means.

Tell me about the Krehers.

It's named after the Kreher family.

Who were they, and how did this happen?

- Well, Charles and Irene Kreher from Blue Mound, a wonderful, wonderful couple who loved agriculture and loved education.

And they had been involved in giving scholarships and were philanthropic in giving to various agencies.

So about 2012, she was interested in moving beyond a scholarship in talking with us, and a very private woman.

Charles had died.

Charlie had died.

And we brought her out here on Wednesday before Thanksgiving in 2012 to chat with her to get to know her and for her to get to know us.

That day, because there was no one on campus, we had a private lunch and our beef roast that our students cooked and took her around, and she just fell in love with what we were doing and seeing how far you could take things with technology and moving forward in the field.

And so we began talking then.

And we talked for about five or six, seven years, and she contributed a little more and wanted to do more.

And as that happened, and as she saw what that could bring, and what it offered for our students, she made the decision that we would get this marvelous gift.

- Isn't it interesting how you never really, you think you somebody, but you don't really know 'em.

Seven and a half million dollars is a huge gift.

Who would've thought that that family had that kind of money?

- Well and it's really an $18 million gift.

- Wow.

Wow.

- It's an $18 million gift, which includes a part of that is 300 acres in Blue Mound that we work, that we co-farm with the tenant farmer there and do some research crops, and which again expands the program with that kind of thing, to research with fertilizer and seed and those kinds of things.

So it's that, about 15 million that's invested and exactly.

It's amazing.

- That's terrific.

Congratulations.

- Thank you.

Thank you.

- This new building, as impressive as it is, is just part of an ongoing gift from the Kreher family, which will provide resources to Lincoln Land's Ag program for years to come.

With another Illinois Story in Springfield, I'm Mark MacDonald.

Thanks for watching.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] "Illinois Stories" is brought to you by The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and by the support of viewers like you.

Thank you.

(whimsical music)