State Reports

State Summary 2007 — D.C.

State Contact

Ms. Joan Smith
DC-AITC
1616 H St. NW, Suite 300
Washington, DC 20006
P: 202.997.0900
E: jcsmith3631@gmail.com

Classroom Resources

None reported for 2007, 2008, 2009

Major Program Accomplishments or Outputs

Kids Growing Food (KGF) grants continued to be the incentive offered for teachers to complete the Agriculture in the Classroom Teacher (AITC) Training Program.

AITC in DC completed its 10th year of implementing Ag related goals and objectives.

FoodPrints continued to bring Farmers and DC Renowned Chefs into 4th and 5th grade classrooms aimed at enhancing the Standards of Learning and improving academic achievement.

Food gardens continue to be the focus for KGF and is the vehicle used as a strategy to help students understand where food comes from, how it grows and to help them make healthy food choices.

An MOU was signed between the University of the District of Columbias Cooperative Service and DCPS Career and Technical Education to replicate the TUNA program with DCPS Consumer Science Teachers.

Seven teachers (7) participated in this school years AITC Training Program representing Wards 1,2,4,6 and 8. The schools represented were Reed Learning Center PreK-6, Walker Jones Educational Center PreK-8, Amidon ES PreK-6, Garfield ES PreK-6, Kamit Institute for Magnificent Achievers (KIMA) charter school, and Stuart Hobson Middle School.  The program offered an opportunity for teachers to complete 21 hours designed to increase agricultural awareness and literacy.

Three Fact Sheets and two seasonal newsletters (Sowing Seeds of Agriculture) were completed.

Ag Jeopardy, Ag Feud and Ag Man are games that were developed to teach agriculture. One game Ag Feud is played like the TV game, Family Feud. It was field tested with teachers and students during the summer session at Bowen ES.  Both teachers and students completed the evaluation by rating five how questions on a scale of 0 to 5, two open-ended questions and one closed question. Their over-all rating was a 5. We will field test all of the games with at least three classes of students and at least three classroom teachers before they are published.

Major Program Impacts or Outcomes

This school year each of the 7 teacher who completed the AITC workshops will teach agricultural content that they developed via lesson plans to at least 168 students whose agricultural awareness will be enhanced.

Approximately 301 students were beneficiaries of the FoodPints program.

Five more food gardens were added to KGF.

All of the 27 students, who participated in the Ag Feud game, gave it a 5 which was the highest possible rating.

Both teachers gave Ag Feud a 5 rating too. They felt it would fit the science, health and nutrition curriculum.