Summary 2022 — Minnesota

State Contact

Ms. Sue Knott
Minnesota Agriculture in the Classroom
625 Robert Street North
St. Paul, MN 55155
P: 651.201.6486
E: sue.knott@state.mn.us
Website

Innovative Programming

Farm and Food Book Week

MN AITC hosted Farm and Food Book Week. Guest readers (authors, athletes, politicians, social media influencers, etc.) were recruited to read agriculture-themed children's books over Zoom. Teachers could register their classroom and attend the virtual reading. After the guest reader completed reading the book, a question-and-answer session was facilitated by MN AITC staff. Students were able to ask the guest readers a multitude of questions. Eleven guest readers, 4434 students and 209 teachers all provided extremely positive feedback.

Farm Camp

Farm Camp Minnesota is a three-day immersive agriculture experience customized for 5-12 students. Our Farm Camp coordinator connects an educator who would his/her/their students to engage and interact with an agricultural site and ag host. The Farm Camp coordinator connects the educator with an ag host and creates a three-day customized Farm Camp. Day 1 that involves classroom learning connect to the agricultural site utilizing lessons and activities from the NAITCO Curriculum Matrix. Day 2 is an opportunity for the students to tour the agricultural site tour (in-person or virtual) and meet the ag host. Day 3 wraps-up the Farm Camp experience with career focused classroom learning, collecting student feedback and evaluating growth in agricultural literacy. 56 classrooms with 958 students experienced a Farm Camp during the 21-22 school year.

Major Program Impacts or Outcomes

At the conclusion of our summer teacher tours, participants responded to this question: How likely are you to incorporate agriculture and food systems into your curriculum during the upcoming school year? 96% responded with very likely, 4% with somewhat likely and 0% said not likely.

Pre-service teachers who participated in a MN AITC professional development workshop were asked to respond to the statement ""I plan to utilize agricultural topics and examples in my future curricula and classroom."" 56% strongly agreed, 40% agreed and 4% were not sure.

These pre-service educators were also asked ""The agricultural ideas and resources presented can be used to assist my students in achieving the MN K-12 academic standards in Science, Social Studies, English Language Arts and/or Math."" 72% strongly agreed, 28% agreed and 0% disagreed or strongly disagreed.

Program Leader Biosketch

Sue Knott's agriculture roots were established on her family's farm in southwestern Minnesota. Experiences in 4-H, FFA and helping raise crops and livestock, inspired her to earn a degree in agricultural education from the University of Minnesota. She taught high school Agricultural Education before joining the Minnesota Agriculture in the Classroom team as Education Specialist in 2011 and took on the role of State Contact in 2016.