ARIZONA

State Contact: Ms. Monica Pastor Univ. of AZ Cooperative Extension 4341 E. Broadway Road Phoenix, AZ 85040

Phone: (602) 470-8086 ext. 317 Fax: (602) 470-8092 E-mail: mpastor@cals.arizona.edu Website

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Classroom Resources
Specialty Crop Lessons: http://cals.arizona.edu/agliteracy/lessons.htm

Major Program Accomplishments
Seventeenth Annual Summer Agricultural Institute was held for 21 educators with help from 78 volunteers giving 350 hours of service. Fifteen thousand dollars from 30 agribusinesses and organizations funded the five-day Institute that traveled through four counties. The Food, Land & People curriculum and Arizona Specialty Crop Lessons are provided for free to the participants.

Maricopa County Farm Bureau continued its funding of half of the Program Coordinator's salary to have trained volunteers who give educationally appropriate presentations in classrooms. Volunteers receive four hours of training on five lessons and are given a box filled with all necessary materials.

Twenty-nine volunteers went into 93 classrooms and read to 2046 primary students during Arizona Agricultural Literacy Days.

A partnership has been formed with the AZ Foundation for Resource Education in which an Educator Workshop will be held each semester. These workshops are coordinated by their teaching faculty in collaboration with AITC staff.

A partnership has been formed with Western Growers Association to coordinate six-hour workshops for their Gardening With Children grant recipients and a Specialty Crop Grant was awarded to begin these trainings each summer for the next three years.

A partnership has been formed with a professor at ASU's College of Education to provide pre-service teacher workshops each semester in her class.

Volunteer Agriculture Educators have implemented educational events at their farms with advice from the Ag Literacy staff and reach 6000 students.

On going meetings have been held with Science Curriculum Coordinators to begin implementing Professional Development opportunities for their faculty.

Major Program Impacts
A research study analyzing six years of data from 160 Summer Agricultural Institute(SAI) participants demonstrated that their level and quantity of knowledge about agriculture is more than "twice as prevalent" in the post assessment.

93% of SAI participants rated the Institute as more valuable than other in-service programs and said it will make a significant difference in the way they present agriculture concepts in their classroom curriculum.

A research study shows that elementary students taught by SAI trained teachers have a measurable increase in their writing scores for the Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards test.

Agricultural Literacy concepts are taught in three pre-service elementary science classrooms. Assessments of participants show 100% will use the lessons in their student teaching.

100% of participants in workshops demonstrate their understanding of the lessons as well as an increase in agriculture knowledge as they work in teams to teach a lesson of their choice prior to completion of the workshop.

5% of educators participating in informational events request presentations by the Agriculture Educator volunteers for their students.

An agriculture lesson taught by an Agriculture Educator volunteer in a fourth grade classroom led to the fourth grade teacher coordinating agriculture lessons for all 28 classrooms in the K-6 elementary school.