GEORGIA

State Contact: Ms. Donna H. Rocker Georgia Farm Bureau Federation P.O. Box 7068 Macon, GA 31210-7068

P: (478) 474-0679 Ext. 5365 F: (478) 405-3422 E: dhrocker@gfb.org Website

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Classroom Resources
2008 Art Contest Calendar

Major Program Accomplishments
The 2008 calendar included excerpts from Misconceptions About Agriculture from American Farm Bureau. A comprehensive list of educational web sites featuring agriculture is included in the calendar which features the state winners and 2 honorable mentions from our statewide high school art contest.

Several summer staff development courses for teachers are held throughout the state. The Professional Learning Unit (PLU) credit is issued through Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College. The course is a minimum of 3 days and teachers receive 2 PLU credits. We also offer in-service and pre-service teacher training.

We provide training at the local, district and state level to encourage our volunteers to be more active in their local schools with Ag in the Classroom. More volunteers are attending the Agriculture in the Classroom National Conference and conducting workshops on what they have learned at the statewide Educational Leadership Conference (formerly Women's Leadership Conference).

Georgia AITC works closely with the Governors Agriculture Awareness Day Advisory Committee. The celebration has grown into a major event held at the Train Depot near the state capitol. As an added incentive, a contest for the most outstanding Ag Awareness Day celebration conducted by a 5th grade class was established.

Each year the GFB State Women's Committee chooses a Georgia commodity on which to place special emphasis. For 2007-2008 the commodity was poultry (including eggs). Our commodity for 2008-2009 is honeybees. We will have a set of lesson plans related to honey bees as well as a list of books. As in past years, we will also produce a bookmark. The bookmarks include basic information about the commodity and information about the industry in Georgia.

A new project, the Aggie Book Club (ABC), was introduced at the Leadership Conference. Several poultry related books were reviewed by the volunteers at the workshop.

Major Program Impacts
The largest impact comes from our county Farm Bureaus who spend countless people-hours doing classroom presentations, conducting Farm Days at Schools and on farms, providing educational materials, and assisting with school projects. With 159 counties, GFB volunteers reach about 20,000 students each year.

The Governor's Agriculture Awareness Award focuses on 5th grade and requires teachers to match agriculture activities for the award to state standards. Also, schools send classes to the Ag Day event at the capital. This event impacts more than 400 persons.

Teacher training is an important component of Georgia AITC. The PLU courses, which are 3 days in length, impact the fewest number of teachers but are much more likely to foster teacher use in the classroom. Pre-service teacher training is also highly successful with more than 100 student teachers reached each year.