Teacher's ag exposure changes self, students, and colleagues
An eye-opening experience for an eighth grade teacher grew into the first agricultural awareness/global food unit for 152 eighth graders and a six-teacher team at Central Middle School District 301 in Burlington.
Kay Shipman
Published: May 30, 2012
“I thought that agriculture was just farming. I didn’t know it was clothing, business, forestry, and much more,” one Kane County eighth grader wrote after his middle school’s first agriculture project.
An eye-opening experience for an eighth grade teacher grew into the first agricultural awareness/global food unit for 152 eighth graders and a six-teacher team at Central Middle School District 301 in Burlington.
“My eyes were so opened to agriculture. It just blew my mind,” eighth grade special education teacher Cathy Britts-Axen told FarmWeek.
Last summer Britts-Axen was amazed by the information she received at her first Summer Ag Institute (institutes focus on integrating ag concepts into the general curriculum). Britts-Axen’s experiences were so educational that she attended a second Summer Ag Institute.
The students needed to “heighten their awareness of agriculture ... We (teachers) have to be exposed” to agriculture, Britts-Axen said. She wanted to combine what she learned with an eighth grade service project.
Suzi Myer, Kane County Farm Bureau ag literacy coordinator, remembered Britts-Axen: “She soaked up everything she could. She was so excited. This (information) obviously went to her classroom and other teachers.”
Britts-Axen’s original idea expanded to involve 152 eighth graders, their teachers, and a two-day immersion into agriculture with a global food service project for third-world countries.
She applied for and received an Illinois Agriculture in the Classroom (IAITC) grant, but confided she and her fellow teachers were determined to push ahead with or without a grant.
The students not only learned about farming and related industries, but they also learned about global food issues by working with the Feed My Starving Children, a non-profit organization with offices in Illinois.
The students learned the history of crop rotation, math applications of futures trading, and the science involved with genetic crop improvements and hydroponic systems. They learned how U.S. farmers feed the world and about the small amount of soil used to produce the world’s food supply.
As an English assignment, the students wrote about their experiences, and Britts-Axen sent samples of their work along with her report to IAITC.
Another sign of the program’s success was the fact that no parent called the school to ask why the students were learning about agriculture. “There’s always one that questions,” Britts-Axen noted. In fact, 20 parents volunteered to help.
Britts-Axen and her fellow teachers are looking ahead to next fall, a new eighth grade class, and more lessons about agriculture to build on this year’s success.
“I think agriculture is very important,” a student wrote. “To me, it’s sad people seem not to care that pretty soon farms may be gone. Agriculture is so important to our society.”
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