WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — The Iowa Agriculture Literacy Foundation (IALF) has awarded 180 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.
One grant recipient, Dean Behrens, commented, “Thank you so much. My students are already asking when the quail eggs are coming to school. They are very excited.”
Some of the innovative applicants will be conducting projects this spring including aquaponics, water quality, farm-to-fork projects, dairy field trips, egg hatching, and agricultural history tours. Successful applicants will use these agricultural experiences to teach language arts, social studies and a variety of other concepts already taught in their classrooms.
“We had some great applications this year involving agriculture in core curriculum in innovative and creative ways,” said IALF education program manager, Cindy Hall. “These projects will allow teachers to make learning real and relevant for their students and still align to state educational standards.”
The grants are a special project of IALF and made possible through support from the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation.
“We are pleased to provide this support for teachers in their classrooms,” said Ronnette Vondrak, Iowa Farm Bureau Federation (IFBF) community resources manager. “Agricultural literacy is an important aspect of the IFBF goal to build understanding of the value of Iowa agriculture.”
Brooklyn Elementary School superintendent, Brad Hohensee, said, “We are very excited to get this project going. Thanks for your support of our school.”
The projects will be completed before the end of the school year with final reports submitted by June 5, 2020. For more information, visit www.iowaagliteracy.org.
— Iowa Agriculture Literacy Foundation
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