By Jim Baer
In school, or anywhere, thereÕs the age-old question: Ôwhat came first, the chicken or the egg?'
Suppose first and second grade teachers wanted to demonstrate to their young students just how the chicken hatches those eggs?ÊThe teacher could purchase an expensive incubator and hope the birthing process takes place at just the right moment during the classroom day. Or they might go to an agricultural-based website and see the progression on the net, each step along the path at a schedule of their convenience.
That's the way Diane Olson sees the opportunity to observe the development of the chick or any other subject related to agricultural science. For 23 years, Olson has been developing learning concepts for school-aged children through the auspices of her post with the Missouri Farm Bureau Federation home-based in Jefferson City. She has served in the capacity of director of promotion and education for the farm bureau since 1985.
"You want to meet our staff, you are looking at it," pointing to herself. She and a secretary hold down the fort for primary and secondary ag education in the State of Missouri.
She lands federal grants to develop websites so students can learn science and ag education throughout the State of Missouri. A virtual field trip for ag education can be found at www.mofb.org\webquest.
"We offer all kinds of creative learning programs and everything is listed by grade level. Our students can learn about subjects like the rings of the earth, irrigation pits and sheering of sheep. We can reach so many students and so much faster by teaching through the web," says Olson.
TEACHING IS WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT
If you want to teach teachers about agricultural education, then you best hire a former teacher to run your program. That's certainly how it works in both Missouri and Illinois.
Illinois has a coordinator and six regional program advisors to run the Facilitating Coordination in Agricultural Education (FCAE) program in the Land of Lincoln.
Dean Dittmar is the District 5 Program Advisor, based out of Belleville who facilitates a 28-county operation throughout Southern Illinois. He has 67 programs under his
watchful eyes.
Dittmar, who was raised on a dairy farm in Galena, Ill., was a former ag education teacher at Waterloo High in Southern Illinois. He loves the classroom and he loves to teach. This marks Dittmar's 19th year on the job for FCAE.
He both established and taught the ag
science curriculum at Waterloo High for
five years.
"We learned a lot of lessons about ag
education over the previous years," says Dittmar. "In the 1970s, interest in ag education in secondary classrooms hit an all-time low. We learned lessons from that, and we didnÕt want to repeat those mistakes," he says thoughtfully.
The educational consortium for ag education is funded to the tune of about $2.8 million dollars a year as a line item through the Illinois legislature. Chicago Gov. Rod Blagojevich is one of the biggest boosters of the program today.
Presently students are guided to ag
education, supported by participation in FFA and prodded to attend one of the
four ag-teaching institutes in the state. And those are the University of Illinois-Champaign, Southern Illinois-Carbondale, Western Illinois (Macomb) and Illinois
State (Bloomington-Normal). Again, teaching the teachers is the method of
spreading the message to the greatest number of students at the most eco-
nomical costs.
STATISTICS SHOW THE FOLLOWING:
- 79% of schools allow agriculture courses to fulfill academic graduation requirements in science, math and consumer education
- 71% of schools have a greenhouse
lab facility
- Professional Development plans have been implemented by 86% of state agricultural teachers
- 64% of the 8,810 agriculture graduating seniors continue their education after
high school
- 81% of the agricultural programs use academic assessments and are incorporated into the curriculum supporting the local improvement plan
Dittmar pointed out that 30,178 youngsters (including membership in FFA) are involved in this educational field and the goal is growing that number to 50,000 by 2015. The metro-east has five schools, which offer agriscience-based curriculums. Those schools are Cahokia, East St. Louis, Brooklyn, Collinsville and Edwardsville.
"Our goal is to do a better job of serving the needs of urban minority students. We lack diversity among our current number of students," says Dittmar. FCAE is planning on introducing and expanding ag education into more urban school systems.
CENTRAL ILLINOIS PLAYS A ROLE
Kevin Daugherty is the education manager for the Illinois Agriculture in the Classroom program and based in Bloomington.ÊHe too was a former classroom teacher. Daugherty, in his eighth year in Bloomington, feels the student is far removed from the agricultural experience today, unlike the exposure he had as a youngster growing up on the farm.
"Kids are removed today from knowing where food comes." He makes the point by drawing the analogy: "comparing grandpa's farm to dad's garden to a child's can
opener today."
"We are reintroducing the agricultural movement. We concentrate on teaching
the teachers. We are able to reach students through a variety of avenues including reading and science.ÊWe provide a whole lot of free materials for teachers to use in
the classroom."
THE MISSOURI APPROACH
Nancy Alford of the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) is directly involved with classroom education. She represents the part of the effort that provides coverage for South Central and Southeast Missouri (which includes the St. Louis area).
Alford says that interest continues to grow locally and around the state, and two St. Louis Community Colleges are playing key roles.
"We have strong ag education programs at both St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley and at Meramec. Florissant Valley has strong ties to the biotech community in St. Louis and offers that subject (biotech education) in depth, while Meramec has a course tied to horticulture."
Interest in the classroom around Missouri continues an upward spiral. "Currently, we have 325 programs in Missouri and 450 teachers, teaching those programs. We are so successful; we are expanding our role to both
post secondary and adult learning programs," she says.
Back in Missouri, Olson spearheads a lot of teacher workshops. "We believe in using enhanced agricultural technology to create positive results in the classroom. Web grants make it possible to teach ag literacy and we utilize a lot of hands-on materials. Olson's efforts are funded mainly from grants from
the Missouri Farm Bureau. Her summer
workshops are typically held in school districts in St. Charles and in Jackson County (the Kansas City area).
Missouri has 36,986 studying agriculture
in grades 7-12. In 2007-08, there were 4,616 high school agricultural education
graduates. Ninety-five percent of
those graduates were placed in further
education, with 56.4% being placed in
agricultural sectors.
Presently five institutions prepare agriculture teachers in Missouri. They are: the University of Missouri-Columbia, Missouri State University (Springfield), Northwest Missouri State University (Maryville), Central Missouri University (Warrensburg) and College of the Ozarks.ÊSt. Louis has four schools, which
offer agricultural-based curriculums.ÊThose schools are Clyde C. Miller Academy (biotechnology), Gateway Institute of Technology (veterinary science), North Technical High School (turf/landscape management and veterinary assistants) and South Technical High School (turf/Landscape management and veterinary assistants).
"Sharing the message of agriculture for our students is so important. When you see the Uh-Huh on their faces, (like they finally get it) you know it is all worthwhile," says Olson. |
