Progress 09/01/17 to 08/31/19
Outputs
Target Audience:NAITCO and its AITC member state programs in most of the 50 states including the District of Columbia take their responsibility of strengthening agricultural literacy in pre-kindergarten-12 classrooms across the country very seriously. They do so by using agricultural concepts in the standards-based pre-kindergarten-12 lesson plans and companion resources to teach reading, writing, math, science, social studies and other subject areas. They demonstrate the use of these lessons to pre-service and in-service teachers in training workshops at the local, state and national level. In addition, they hold agriculture literacy reading programs in elementary schools, provide grant programs in which the use of these agricultural educational materials is required, awards programs in which innovative agricultural literacy teaching practices are showcased and other initiatives to help teachers educate students about the source and the importance of their food, fiber and fuel. Altogether, the national and state programs reached the following target audiences during the reporting period of this grant: 96,579 in-service teachers, 9,090 pre-service teachers, 45,226 informal educators and 8.2 million students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. Changes/Problems:The only issue we've had in the last year are coding problems with the National Agricultural Literacy Curriculum Matrix, the database of hundreds of PreK-12th grade lessons and companion resources on the NAITC website. The original program used is out of date and no longer supported by the NCAL/USU technical team. As a result, some funds had to be diverted from trade show travel and graduate student programs to cover updating it. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?NAITCO hosts a national conference each year which attracts about 450 teachers in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade from around the country. It hosted 452 PreK-12th grade teachers to the national conference in Little Rock, AR June 2019, and they attended 80 traveling and onsite workshops to learn how to use agricultural concepts to teach reading, writing, math, nutrition, science and social studies. Traveling workshops took teachers to rice fields and hybrid bass rearing farms, among others, and onsite workshop topics included the science behind GMOs, STEM concepts high tech farming, among many others. The workshops received above average evaluations. NAITCO and NCAL provided support and professional development presentations at four regional meetings of State AITC Programs in the spring of 2019 in Portland, OR,, Little Rock, AR, Des Moines, IA and Saratoga Springs, NY in which 80 AITC state contacts and staff members from 40 states participated. They learned how to use agricultural concepts in new pedagogical teaching approaches such as problem-based learning (i.e. how to design a hen house model so the lights and fans turn on periodically to encourage hens to lay eggs) and phenomena-based learning (i.e. the science behind GMOs and the reason popcorn pops). NAITCO provides professional development webinars every other month on the USDA/NIFA Fire Up Grant projects to help AITC state programs understand how to submit and carry out successful grant applications that fund professional development workshops for teachers, agriculture-related resource materials for students and others. NCAL conducted three webinars with the National Science Teachers Association that reached hundreds of science teachers around the country and covered topics such as world food sustainability, and school garden-based learning. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Information about the national conference and the professional development workshops and webinars are communicated regularly in NAITCO quarterly newsletters, which can be seen at https://agclassroom.org/get/subscribe.cfm. In addition, information about these events is communicated with press releases to AITC state programs which can be seen at https://agclassroom.org/get/press.cfm. NAITCO also uses Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/NationalAgricultureInTheClassroomOrganization and Twitter at https://twitter.com/intent/user?screen_name=AITCtweets&original_referer=https://agclassroom.org/index.cfm What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Agriculture provides the very sustenance of life and without it no society can survive. By 2050 it is projected the world's population will reach 10 billion people requiring agriculture production to double with less land and water while sustaining our planet. A majority of consumers - youth and adults - do not have a fundamental understanding of agriculture and how it impacts their lives. Non-profit National Agriculture in the Classroom Organization (NAITCO) and its members, which are the Agriculture in the Classroom programs in most of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, educate those non-agriculture teachers and students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade about the importance of agriculture. They do so with agricultural-based lessons and resources that teach reading, writing, math, nutrition, math, science and social students that are demonstrated at workshops at the local, state and national level, showcased in a national teacher awards program and evaluated and researched by the subcontractor National Center for Agricultural Literacy (NCAL) at Utah State University. A. Strengthening State AITC Programs - NAITCO and NCAL strengthened State AITC programs by supporting and administering a national conference that attracted 452 Pre-K-12 teachers from around the country, showcasing the innovative agricultural approaches used by eight award-winning teachers, maintaining a website (agclassroom.org) that attracted 349,000 visitors, overseeing on the website a database of 431 lessons and 825 companion resources called the National Agricultural Literacy Curriculum Matrix, providing six Fire-Up Grants totaling $65,000 to State AITC programs and providing online and onsite professional development workshops for State AITC programs. B. USDA AITC Recognition Program - NAITCO honored eight teachers - six elementary teachers and two secondary teachers - at the national conference in June 2019 for projects such as one in Florida in which students have developed a vertical farm to grow lettuce to feed manatees at Sea World and another in Alabama in which special needs students become farmers and rear livestock and grow crops. Please see descriptions of their projects at https://agclassroom.org/teacher_award/19.cfm. C. AITC Website and National Agricultural Literacy Curriculum Matrix Maintenance - NCAL provided one-stop, web-based resources at www.agclassroom.org which attracted 349,000 visits, and fostered improved teaching practices by adding lessons that used innovative game technologies, Arduino boards, and drones. New critical thinking activities were added to several lessons including companion resource scenarios. In addition, three-dimensional learning approaches as described in the Next Generation Science Standards, were called out in nine science lessons, this practice will continue this next year for all science lessons. Forty-five percent of traffic to the website (157,050 percent) went to the Curriculum Matrix. Online and onsite professional development webinars and workshops were provided to AITC state program representatives and teachers demonstrating these lessons. D. Research and Evaluation Projects - NCAL developed and shared with AITC state programs a survey instrument to measure the impact of their state in-service and pre-service programs. A research project to measure the effectiveness of a mobile agricultural lab was completed and published as a thesis and poster presentation. National Agricultural Literacy Outcome assessments were developed for grades K-5 and 9-12. These assessments went through rigorous academic testing and have been submitted for publication to two journals. The 9-12 assessment was the subject of a dissertation and will be presented as a paper at the 2019 Western Region Association for Agricultural Education in Anchorage Alaska. E. Curriculum Development and Development of Materials to Support Teacher Pre-Service and In-Service Trainings - Six new lessons covering secondary STEM and other areas were added in the last year, and Career and Technical standards were added to 22 lessons in the Matrix. NCAL conducted three webinars with the National Science Teachers Association featuring lessons on global food sustainability, school gardening and other topics. F. Outreach Collaborations with Other Organizations and Agencies - NAITCO and NCAL presented workshops and exhibited at the Association of Science Teacher Education and National Science Teachers Association conferences and developed collaborations with Modern Agricultural Education Group. G. National Center for Agricultural Literacy - NCAL will hire two new USU faculty members this year to complete research activities. This past year there was a 50% increase in agclassroomstore.com orders (1,090), 80% out of state orders. The average number of students reached per order, 151 @ .65 per student (MN reached 13,844 students with eStore resources). In addition, social networks were added to the store and metrics for increased activity will be monitored in this next year.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Spielmaker, D. M. (2019). The green book: Chapter 2 Agricultural Literacy. The Agricultural Education Magazine, 91(6), 22-25.
Stewardson, D. M., & Spielmaker, D. M. (2019). Find your future in a living science career. Science Scope, 91(6), 40-46.
Spielmaker, D. M. (2019). Find your future in a living science career. Science Scope, 91(6), 84-88.
|