CALIFORNIA

State Contact: Ms. Judy Culbertson California Foundation for Ag in the Classroom 2300 River Plaza Drive Sacramento, CA 95833-3293

Phone: (916) 561-5625 Fax: (916) 561-5697 E-mail: jculbertson@cfbf.com Website

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Classroom Resources
Teacher Resource Guide
What's Growin' On? (Newspapers in Education)
What's Growin' On? Teacher Guide
Commodity and Natural Resource Fact and Activity Sheets
Web Activities for Students based on What's Growin' On?

Major Program Accomplishments
350,000 CA K-5 students and their teachers received an educational activity package, Go for the Gold developed by CFAITC and the Buy California Marketing Agreement focusing on the CA agriculture industry. The curriculum meets state teaching standards in Science, History-Social Science and Health.

More than 5,000 educator how-to books detailing school gardens were distributed to teachers in 2007. Gardens for Learning: Creating and Sustaining Your School Garden was developed with the help of CFAITC, and printed by partnering organization, the CA School Garden Network.

500,000 copies of our student activity newspaper, Whats GrowinOn? were distributed to classrooms and communities in cooperation with CAs Newspapers in Education Program. This supplement focused on plant health and was included in multiple newspaper circulations throughout CA.

Two editions of our Cream of the Crop educator newsletter were developed and distributed to more than 38,000 individuals, schools and organizations at each mailing.

CFAITC developed a Corn Fact & Activity Sheet, adding to our collection of 28 CA commodities in this educational packet. The fact sheet reviews the historical, scientific, economic and social significance of corn and its byproducts. It also includes fun-facts, activities, lesson plans and experiments.

Our annual conference for educators was held in Oct. at the Asilomar Conference Grounds in Monterey. 275 teachers attended this 2-day, issues-based symposium, where key agriculture topics and their impacts as they relate to teaching were discussed. Issues included water, land use and energy, and a farmer panel spoke to attendees.

CFAITC was highlighted in the Sept./Oct. 2007 edition of CA Farm Bureaus magazine and television show, both titled, California Country. Featuring Dianne Swanson, our Teacher of the Year, the magazine dedicated its cover, and six pages to Dianne’s school garden and her agricultural teaching methods.

Major Program Impacts
82% of the 2007 CFAITC Conference attendees reported that they would use the skills, knowledge and activities that they learned at the conference with their students when they returned to their classrooms. 275 educators attended this two-day conference.

CFAITC Ambassador growth increased by 9% in 2007. At the end of the year, there were 10,686 educators in California using our resources and programs in their classrooms, acting as a liaison between CFAITC and their school community. CFAITC is represented in 40% of California's schools.

Website visitors to our website, www.cfaitc.org, totaled 144,140 for 2007, a 28% increase from last year.

More than 10,000 agriculturally-themed stories were researched, written and submitted by California 3-8 grade students for CFAITCs annual "Imagine This" Creative Writing Contest.

CFAITCs University Student Teacher Program presented to 574 student teachers across the state over the course of 24 presentations during 2007, encouraging these future teachers to establish our resources and programs as a foundation of their classroom curriculum.