WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — The Iowa Agriculture Literacy Foundation (IALF) has awarded 183 grants to schools throughout Iowa to support the integration of agriculture into classroom instruction or after school programs with an academic focus.

The Agriculture in the Classroom Teacher Supplement Grants are designed to help teachers initiate new projects or expand existing projects that promote agriculture literacy in students.  Grants can be used to fund innovative lessons, activities, classroom resources, guest speakers, outreach programs, fieldtrips, and other projects.

“This year’s grant projects will focus on integrating agriculture into science and language arts curriculums,” said IALF education program manager Cindy Hall.  “We hope these grants will allow teachers to make real world connections to what they are already teaching.”

Some of the innovative applicants will be conducting projects this spring including agriculture reading units, planting and growing seeds, field trips to Living History Farms, rabbit production, beef and milk production, and exploration of agricultural careers.  Successful applicants will use agriculture as the vehicle to teach many of the concepts already taught in their classroom like science and language arts.

One grant recipient, Maria Brown, commented, “The funds will come in handy and we can’t wait to implement a farming unit with our preschool students.”

The grants are a special project of IALF and made possible through support from the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation.

“We are very pleased to be able to provide this support to classroom interested is teaching agriculture,” said IFBF director of community resources Barb Lykins.

The projects will be completed before the end of the school year with final reports to be submitted by June 5, 2017. For more information, visit www.iowaagliteracy.org.

— Iowa Agriculture Literacy Foundation

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