Randi Osborne, the agricultural teacher and FFA advisor at Weston School in Cazenovia, was recently named a Herb Kohl Fellowship recipient and received a $3,000 award. Fellowship recipients are educators who have been chosen for their superior ability to inspire a love of learning in their students, their ability to motivate others, and their leadership and service within and outside the classroom.

Osborne has been instrumental in building and maintaining a viable greenhouse and has expanded the program to include school-wide composting and the use of aquaponics to grow lettuce for the school lunch program. Her students also raise and care for chickens, use micropipettes and microcentrifuges, along with becoming adept at using scientific equipment.

Her most ambitious project has been establishing a flock of dairy sheep. Students researched, fundraised, designed and built a barn and now conduct basic husbandry practices on the sheep. Work continues on the milk house and milking parlor with a goal to make sheep milk soap in the future.