Project
Summaries
2003 Agriculture in the Classroom Excellence (ACE) Awards
Following are summaries of the current 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 2003.
The Award date for all grantees was August 13, 2003. Project Duration
ranged from 12-24 months and is noted in each state's summary.
State: Alaska
Project Title: Enhancing the Agricultural Literacy of Alaska
Students Grades 6-12
Award Amount: $5,000
Project Duration: 18 months
Project Completed
Summary:
This grant provided funding for a new Alaska AITC Lesson Plan CD
for grades 7-12. The CD is being circulated among Alaska teachers
and has already generated additional lesson plans which will be
added in the future. These lessons are also available on the Alaska
AITC website which was revamped as part of this project.
Marketing of AITC's resources has increased through participation
in a science and math teachers' conference, the Alaska State
Fair, and ag-related events in Anchorage. Consequently, educator
contacts have increased, and AITC materials are being presented
to teachers at in-services and workshops.
State: Louisiana
Project Title: Production Map and Educators Guide
Award Amount: $5,000
Project Duration: 12 months
Project Completed
Summary:
The Louisiana Agricultural Production Map and Educator's Guide
Project had two objectives. The objectives of this project were
to create a Louisiana Agricultural Production Map, which identifies
the major commodities grown in the state, and to create an Educator's
Guide to accompany the map.
A full-color poster-size map depicting the top commodities produced
in Louisiana has been created and 5,000 copies printed. Maps were
distributed to educators who attended the 2004 Louisiana Ag in
the Classroom Workshops. Maps continued to be distributed to teachers
across the state through our local Farm Bureau Ag in the Classroom
committees.
The accompanying 60-page Educator's Guide includes lessons correlated
to the Louisiana Department of Education Frameworks as well as
basic commodity information. The guides are being distributed
to teachers across the state. Two of the lessons were presented
to the teachers at the 2004 AITC workshops with great success.
The response from teachers attending the workshops regarding
the maps and lessons was extremely positive. They are a big hit
with the third grade teachers who are required to teach a complete
Louisiana unit. At the request of teachers, the map is available
to download from the Louisiana AITC website. There were also 20,000
copies printed of an 11" X 17" desk-size map.
State: Maryland
Project Title: Mid-Atlantic AITC Curriculum Development
Workshop
Award Amount: $7,600
Project Duration: 18 months
Project Completed
Summary:
This is a multi-state project which includes Maryland, Pennsylvania
and New Jersey. This group produced two teacher resources—Literature
Links to Agriculture and Baker's Dozen—which were
distributed in print copies and CD-ROM.
Literature Links contained lesson plans to complement six books
(Bananas; How Do You Raise a Raisin?; Oh, Say Can You Seed; Popcorn;
Pumpkin Circle; Tops & Bottoms) accompanied by a PowerPoint
presentation on the benefits of teaching about agriculture. These
lessons can easily be integrated into language arts, science and
math curriculum areas. Bakers' Dozen contains 14 of the favorite
lessons shared and selected by the participating states.
State: Nevada
Project Title: Enhancing Knowledge of Agricultural Issues
Through Teacher Training and Implementation of Food, Land and
People
Award Amount: $5,000
Project Duration: 18 months
Project Completed
Summary:
The project was divided into six areas:
- Develop program resource sets to be used by FLP facilitators.
Resource kits containing FLP lessons, materials, books and supplies
were developed for use by FLP facilitators to use while conducting
teacher training.
- Align FLP with Nevada academic standards.
The resulting document aligned each of the 55 FLP lessons with
Nevada Content Standards in science, math, language arts, social
studies and health.
- Train a cadre of FLP facilitators.
Twelve facilitators were trained statewide. The goal of having
20 trained facilitators was difficult due to the geographic
distance between population centers in Nevada and the lack of
knowledge about this new program.
- Conduct teacher workshops.
Workshops included several general sessions, small break-out
sessions on specific topics and FLP lessons, and a field trip
experience.
- Evaluate the effectiveness of the FLP facilitators.
An evaluation form was developed for use after workshop sessions.
- Assess FLP implementation by teachers.
Teachers who have undergone FLP training will be contacted 6
months later to determine if FLP is being utilized.
State: Ohio
Project Title: Window on Your Waterways Professional Development
Program
Award Amount: $5,000
Project Duration: 21 months
Project Completed
Summary:
Ohio Farm Bureau Federation (OFBF) Agriculture in the Classroom
program formed a partnership with the local USDA Soil & Water
Conservation Districts (SWCD) in Ohio by granting 12 mini grants
to individual and multi-county SWCDs for watershed education. A
total of 29 counties received $10,000 in funding that was made possible
by the Excellence grant ($5,000) and OFBF Promotion & Education
and Agricultural Ecology resources. The project correlated to OFBF's
strategic plan in the area of building strong relationships with
providers of research, education and training that benefits the
agricultural industry and the community.
A majority of the mini grants were used to deliver professional
development programs to Ohio's science educators that addressed
agriculture's role in local watershed issues. The mini grants
were used to prepare classroom teachers to help students research
local watershed inquiry-based issues that included discussions
of agricultural conservation practices. Resources shared with
participating teachers included the OFBF Window on your Waterways
educational activity guide about watersheds and many other educational
resources like Food, Land and People; Healthy Water, Healthy People;
Project Wild Aquatic; Stream Keepers Field Guide, etc. The local
SWCD specialists followed up (as mentors) with the classroom teachers
during the next school year to facilitate the use of the new resources.
Various evaluation assessments were used to measure effectiveness
and success of the individual programs.
State: Oregon
Project Title: Strengthening Oregon AITC by Aligning with
State Benchmarks
Award Amount: $5,000
Project Duration: 18 months
Project Completed
Summary:
The Oregon AITC Foundation reviewed all existing materials in their
resource library to determine their alignment with the Oregon Educational
Benchmark Standards. The review looked at how agriculture can be
taught at each grade level and how the materials could help teachers
meet the Oregon standards for each content area. A consistent, readable
format was established for teachers to peruse as they decided which
materials to use for classroom lessons. These improvements have
made the program easier to use and provided an incentive for teachers
to use the resources.
At several workshops and conferences, teachers were introduced to
AITC resources and were shown how they could be used to meet state
standards. The AITC website is frequently updated with information
on materials and their alignment with state benchmarks. Resources
can be ordered online.
State: South Carolina
Project Title: Bringing AITC to Disadvantaged South Carolina
School Districts
Award Amount: $5,000
Project Duration: 12 months
Project Completed
Summary:
The objectives of this project were: 1) Enhance teaching strategies
for teachers in at least nine low-performing high schools with a
5% - 10% dropout rate; 2) Expose at least 25 teachers in at least
nine low-performing high schools with a 5% - 10% dropout rate to
agricultural concepts that can be integrated into the high school
curriculum.
Pre- and post-session questionnaires were developed to provide district-level
and overall data about the effectiveness of in-service workshops
in the areas of transferring knowledge of agricultural concepts
as well as innovative teaching strategies for students of varying
learning styles.
Ag in the Classroom workshops were presented to faculty and individual
teachers from at least 11 SC disadvantaged districts. Teachers from
qualifying districts also attended workshops at statewide subject-area
teacher conferences. These teachers received grade-level lesson
plans and class sets of South Carolina Ag Maps. AITC staff demonstrated
AITC activities, and the American Farm Bureau, South Carolina Beef
Board and South Carolina Forestry Association provided additional
agricultural-related items for teachers.
State: Wisconsin
Project Title: Wisconsin Farm and Food Connections
Award Amount: $5,000
Project Duration: 18 months
Project Completed
Summary:
Wisconsin AITC used this grant to develop, print and distribute
a new lesson plan unit addressing a variety of agricultural topics
for grades 4-6. The project was designed to provide a new AITC classroom
resource for teachers with ready-to-use lessons and classroom activities
which would be linked to Wisconsin's Model Academic Learning Standards
at the fourth grade level.
The finished project, Wisconsin Farm and Food Connections, is
now being distributed to teachers statewide in three formats—in
a printed, spiral-bound booklet; on CD-ROM; and as a series of
downloadable files on the Wisconsin AITC website. Connections
contains 18 lessons and each is linked to Wisconsin learning standards
in the areas of social studies, mathematics, science and language
arts.
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