State Programs
State Summary 2010 — Utah
State Contact
Ms. Debra Spielmaker
Utah Agriculture in the Classroom
2315 Old Main Hill
Logan, UT 84322
P: 435.213.5562
F: 435.797.4002
E: debra.spielmaker@usu.edu
Website
Classroom Resources
1. Bee-Line K-6 Newsletter: Our team published 3-issues of our elementary newsletter. Issues of this 8-page educator publication can be found on our website, http://extension.usu.edu/aitc/teachers/news/index.html. 1. AgroWorld: AgroWorld (http://www.agclassroom.org/teen/agro/agro.htm)focuses on three curriculum areas; science, technology, and society. I prepare 4 issues/year (Sept-Oct, Nov-Dec, Jan-Feb, April-May). 2. This year we reformatted all of our 85+ lesson plans, in preparation for our new website with dynamic database searching. This new site will allow for access to all not just teachers registered in our online courses. utah.agclassroom.org 3. Newspapers in Education 2010:From Grass to the Glass". 4. We continued to improve our Utah School and Youth Garden Network http://www.utahgardennetwork.org. Three comprehensive lesson plans for theArts Our Core!" USU workshop were developed and posted. All the lessons had a garden theme related to art and science. 5: Three new Career Technical and Education Introduction lessons were developed on agricultural careers as part of a contract with the Utah State Office of Education. These lesson plans resulted in the creation of three new kits/resources for our eStore. 7. Career Videos. This year we developed 20, 2-minute career videos. These videos are part of a SPECA grant from USDA. A career game was also developed and a section of ag career question cards.
Major Program Accomplishments or Outputs
By the end of 2010 we were 90% completed with the design and development of our new dynamic website/online course/and e-store integration project. This new site provides one porthole for accessing our resources, making purchases, creating a library and submitting online course information. The site is dynamic in that all the standards can be updated and lessons realigned in seconds by any AITC staff member, from any place with an internet connection (even a cell phone). Teachers can also easily submit projects and shop with mobile devices. We are pilot testing the new site with 7 teachers and will make adjustments as needed during 2011.
Get Growing Garden Workshops - Fall 2011. We continue to offer and fill gardening workshops. We conducted three successful workshops in 2010 for 70 teachers.
We expanded our online Teacher Resource Center both in teacher use and the resources offered. More than 20 resources including books, videos, posters, bulletin boards, and other materials were added to the Resource Center. Our online teacher resource center (e-store) generated $35,567 in sales and sent out over 998 orders.
120 Career Technical Education teachers received training with revised AITC materials and software. Three Issues of the Bulletin, our K-6 Teacher Newsletter was distributed to 2,500 teachers.
Deseret News Newspapers in Education Publication was written by AITC and sent to 380,000 students statewide
Farm Field Day Instructional Materials for 500 teachers, statewide
Four issues of the e-zine, AgroWorld, (for secondary teachers) were published. 787 (an increase of 45%) Utah teachers receive this bimonthly publication. An index was created on the AgroWorld Website for back issues along with a promotional flyer for the USDA-AITC website.
Major Program Impacts or Outcomes
This year 210,000 students were taught with AITC created and statewide mandatory instructional units in science (4th grade soils, 5th grade heredity, 6th grade microorganism, K-6 nutrition, Technology, Life and Careers (7th grade).
30 teachers K-12, enrolled in our online course in 2010-11. Each teacher reaches between 25 and 100 students with 10-20 hours of classroom instruction to meet state standards. That translates into 2100 students who have received 10-20-hours AITC instruction.
15,000 students were reached with classroom materials (books, videos, etc.) from our resource center.
Biosketch
Debra Spielmaker is an Associate Professor at Utah State University and Statewide Director of the Utah Agriculture in the Classroom program. Debra has taught high school agriculture science and middle school science for 7 years in Utah and Montana, she has been at Utah State University for 17 years. The Agriculture in the Classroom program provides teacher training, classroom materials and other resources to teach youth about agriculture; food, fiber, and the environment.