Project Summaries
2006 Agriculture in the Classroom Excellence (ACE) Awards

Following are summaries of the status of the projects funded by USDA and the National Agriculture in the Classroom Consortium through the AITC Excellence (ACE) grant program for the year 2006. The award date for all grantees was August 1, 2006. Project duration ranged from 12-24 months and is noted in each state's summary.

State: Arkansas
Project Title: Agricultural Supplement for 5th & 8th Grade History Classes
Award Amount: $7,500
Project Duration: 24 months
Scheduled Completion Date: August 1, 2008
Summary:
Arkansas AITC will produce An Agricultural History of Arkansas, a student narrative and teacher handbook designed as a supplement for fifth- and eighth-grade Arkansas history classes (required by the Arkansas State Board of Education). The emphasis is on Arkansas history from an agricultural perspective. The material will be divided into five eras, from the first settlements in the territory up to the present day.

The objectives of this grant include: formulation of pre-and post-usage questionnaires that measure change in student attitudes toward agriculture; preparation of questions for teacher phone interviews after the use of new material that measure the effectiveness of the material in the classroom; 20 teacher in-service trainings to introduce new material to educators.

Outcomes expected include a heightened awareness of the importance of agriculture in the state's history and in the daily lives of teachers; and further trust and acceptance by teachers, principals, and school boards of the AITC program as a responsive and reliable educational tool. It is also expected that additional commitment is made from university students, university educators, Arkansas history teachers and county Farm Bureau committee members as they link together to participate in educating students about agriculture. A better understanding of the workings of production agriculture in the part of the non-farm public may help in the passage of future farmer-friendly legislation.

State: Florida
Project Title: Florida Agriculture in the Classroom Interactive Online Workshop
Award Amount: $7,500
Project Duration: 18 months
Scheduled Completion Date: February 1, 2008
Summary:
Florida AITC will develop an interactive online workshop to train teachers in Florida AITC curricula and materials. This project involves correlating lessons from Food, Land, and People; Keeping Florida Green; and related activities from other materials developed by Florida AITC and other programs. Additionally, it would require adding the interactive workshop to Florida AITC's new web site and developing a way for teachers to receive credit for their work.

State: Maine
Project Title: Tools for Delivering the Agricultural Education Message to Educators
Award Amount: $7,540
Project Duration: 24 months
Scheduled Completion Date: August 1, 2008
Summary:
Maine AITC will strengthen the teacher education program and improve agricultural literacy through use of an up-to-date laptop and projection system. This system will be used at MAITCA Teacher Trainings and faculty preparations. It will advance faculty development and instructional delivery of agricultural education materials.

In Maine, this equipment will be especially valuable when working with Middle School Teachers and students. The Maine Laptop Initiative supplied each 7th and 8th grade student with his or her own laptops and internet connections. These students are especially receptive to lessons and materials designed for laptop use. With these tools, Maine AITC plans to double the number of middle school classrooms in Maine using agricultural education materials.

State: Maryland
Project Title: Agriculture Returns to the City
Award Amount: $7,360
Project Duration: 24 months
Scheduled Completion Date: August 1, 2008
Summary:
Agriculture Returns to the City is an initiative to expose both students and teachers in urban areas to agriculture and the food system with classroom activities, hands-on urban gardening, nutrition education, and teacher training using Maryland Agricultural Education Foundation (MAEF) resources. Curriculum will be developed around agricultural themes and packaged in easy-to-carry totes. The lessons will be targeted to involve inner city youth and interest students in the learning process with hands-on activities in agricultural topics relevant to the students every day.

Expected outcomes include: 1) a large, underserved student population will be introduced to the importance of agriculture in their daily lives; 2) the metropolitan education community will gain an interest in AITC resources and training; 3) new hands-on lessons integrating agriculture into existing curriculum will be developed for the classroom.

State: New Jersey
Project Title: Enhancing Learning through Gardening
Award Amount: $7,500
Project Duration: 24 months
Scheduled Completion Date: August 1, 2008
Summary:
New Jersey's Agricultural Society's Learning through Gardening project provides schools with an outdoor laboratory—the garden—where students can actually see, tough and feel much of what they are learning. For the 2005-06 school year, 12 New Jersey schools enrolled in the Agriculture in the Classroom/Learning through Gardening (AITC/LTG) program, reaching nearly 6,000 students throughout the school year. This grant will enhance the elements of this program to make it even easier for teachers to integrate the garden into their existing curriculum and make it an even more enjoyable and educational experience for students and staff.

This grant will accomplish two goals:

1. Compile and format the weekly AITC/LTG lesson plans into a uniform application and upload the plans to the AITC/LTG section of our web site. These documents would be available for teachers nationwide.
2. Engage and subsidize the services of an Ag Educator to visit inner city AITC schools once weekly to supplement classroom teachers' efforts.

State: Oklahoma
Project Title: Food and Fun with Agriculture in the Classroom
Award Amount: $7,500
Project Duration: 18 months
Scheduled Completion Date: February 1, 2008
Summary:
Oklahoma Ag in the Classroom (OAITC) will develop a resource guide for educators that will be readily available, enhance student learning and be relevant to the existing classroom curriculum. Food and Fun with AITC will be a collection of recipes and directions to create manipulatives that have been proven to pique students' interest and provide optimum learning opportunities.

Research-based agriculture background, Priority Academic Student Skills required to complete the activity, and corresponding OAITC lessons will be included with each recipe and manipulative activity. There will also be a section of Ag Facts compiled from the Ag Facts link on the OAITC web site and the OAITC school-year calendar.

State: Oregon
Project Title: Delivering Ag in the Classroom Workshops to Oregon Teachers & Volunteers
Award Amount: $7,500
Project Duration: 24 months
Scheduled Completion Date: August 1, 2008
Summary:
The Oregon Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation has prioritized training teachers and volunteers to use its materials. Oregon AITC has aligned its resource materials to the Oregon Benchmark Standards and is developing a Teacher Resource Guide with information about the program and resource materials. Oregon AITC has a curriculum that is Oregon-specific and has updated and printed a 4th grade history book, Get Oregonized, and a Teacher's Guide. The next step is to pre-service graduate students in education, organize statewide workshops for teachers, and train local volunteers to work in classrooms.

The goal is to have eight new trainings within the grant period, service graduate students, classroom teachers, and volunteers. The ultimate outcome will be increased numbers of teachers who have the capacity to utilize these resources to bring agriculture and natural resources to life in their classrooms.

State:South Dakota
Project Title: "What's Growing in South Dakota" Pre-service Field Guide
Award Amount: $7,500
Project Duration: 18 months
Scheduled Completion Date: February 1, 2008
Summary:
South Dakota AITC is working to implement pre-service agriculture literacy training at five state universities offering elementary education degrees. This program will be used as a vehicle to assist future educators in integrating agriculture into core curriculum. Funding from this grant will enable South Dakota AITC to produce curriculum for, and to provide materials to, college students through these pre-service presentations.

Six additional lesson plans will be written to accompany the previously developed "Pre-service Field Guide." In addition, a resource directory and contact information will be provided to teachers to assist them in the classroom.

State: Tennessee
Project Title: Enhancing Reading through AITC
Award Amount: $7,500
Project Duration: 18 months
Scheduled Completion Date: February 1, 2008
Summary:
The Tennessee Foundation for AITC will develop lesson plans to accompany primary level reading books. Curriculum packets will be printed and companion books will be purchased for 180 teachers. These resources will be distributed at university workshops, held at ten locations across Tennessee.

Educational consultants and teacher participants will fine-tune the lesson plans for grades K-3 to insure appropriate grade level and applicability. Agriculturally related curriculum will be written with connections to books selected from the suggested reading list developed by American Farm Bureau's Foundation for Agriculture. By incorporating children's books (fiction and non-fiction) that have agricultural themes, teachers will be more receptive to integrating agricultural concepts into their daily classrooms. Providing the necessary children's books insures that each teacher has all the necessary materials to complete the project. Our goal is to increase the number of teachers that have these materials available.

State: Virginia
Project Title: Virginia Foundation AITC Children's Literature Project
Award Amount: $7,250
Project Duration: 24 months
Scheduled Completion Date: August 1, 2008
Summary:
The Virginia Foundation AITC Children's Literature Project will provide schools with a set of five children's books with an agricultural theme, along with one lesson plan for each book per grade level (K-5) on data CD. The lesson plans will be aligned with Virginia Standards of Learning but also strongly connect agriculture with language arts.

Two activity developers will work with AITC staff to choose the five children's books and develop lessons and activities for each book, one lesson plan per grade level for each book. Books will be chosen based on their connection to agriculture, versatility f the content for the development of corresponding curriculum that spans the six grade levels, and cost-effectiveness.

VAITC will distribute the set of five books to elementary school libraries throughout the school year. The lesson plans will accompany each set of books on a data CD, and will be available on the Virginia AITC website. Schools that host a VAITC workshop will receive a set of books. Teachers can immediately begin using the books and corresponding lesson plans in their classrooms for grades K-5.

State: Wisconsin
Project Title: Fun Faces of Wisconsin Agriculture Lessons
Award Amount: $7,500
Project Duration: 18 months
Scheduled Completion Date: February 1, 2008
Summary:
The Wisconsin Farm Bureau Foundation, through the Wisconsin Ag in the Classroom program, will develop a set of lesson plans—Fun Faces of Wisconsin Agriculture Lessons and Activities—to incorporate the activities already available with a lesson plan for teachers. Lesson plans will be correlated to Wisconsin's Model Academic Standards (grades 4-6) including reading, language, math, science, and social studies. Two lesson plans will be developed for each commodity group for a total of twenty lessons. The lessons will include background information, the classroom lesson plan, and supporting materials from various Wisconsin commodity groups and organizations.

These lesson plans will provide a mechanism for teachers to use the plans and related activities in a standards-based unit. The unit will fit into their existing curriculum and can be readily adapted into their lesson plans required by administration. This project will help the AITC program educate the commodity groups on the importance of using their educational funds for standards-based activities that will increase the amount of usage by teachers.

State: Wyoming
Project Title: Natural Resource Discovery Rendezvous
Award Amount: $7,500
Project Duration: 12 months
Scheduled Completion Date: August 1, 2007
Summary:
This grant will cover the educational materials and production-related expenses at the 2006 National Resource Discovery Rendezvous. This educational opportunity provides teachers with hands-on interdisciplinary, place-based activities demonstrating how to incorporate natural resource /outdoor education into classroom lessons that achieve multiple state education standards. Participants will gain a broader awareness and understanding of Wyoming's natural resources and the role agriculture plays in sustaining open spaces, wildlife habitats, and rural economics.

This program will show teachers how to involve their students in natural resource education using farms, ranches, and other facilities as an outdoor educational arena. Participants will become better equipped to help students understand the disciplines of science, mathematics, economics, history, social studies, and communication (oral and written) using outdoor experiences. The course will introduce participants to the resources available to them including ranchers, local natural resource agencies, and organizations and teachers already involved in outdoor place-based education. Various field trips, tours, and presentations—as well as hands-on activities—will be provided.