By:
Patti Bartlett (352) 392-1773 x 276

Source(s):
Lisa Gaskalla LBGaskalla@ifas.ufl.edu, (352) 846-1391
Monica Brinkley MLBrinkley@ifas.ufl.edu, (850) 643-2229
Cyanne Williams crwilliams53@aol.com, (352) 495- 2111
Larry Arrington lra@ifas.ufl.edu, (352) 392-1761

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GAINESVILLE, Fla.—To help Florida schoolchildren understand farming and its impact on their lives, University of Florida experts are contributing to a statewide program that enables teachers to incorporate agricultural education in a variety of courses.

Florida Agriculture in the Classroom, or FAITC, offers free or nominally priced materials suitable for students from pre-K to through grade 12 to public and private school teachers, said Lisa Gaskalla, executive director of the program. Although the program is housed at UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, or UF/IFAS, it is an independent organization funded by sales of the agriculture specialty license plate, and supported by UF/IFAS, Florida agriculture industry organizations and the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

“Many children think food comes from the grocery store,” Gaskalla said. “Farming may be in a family’s background, but it’s generally two or more generations back. For us, the challenge is to make agriculture relevant to these kids, and provide information in a form that’s practical for teachers to use.”

FAITC offers an array of grade-specific lesson plans that use agricultural topics to teach language arts, math, science and social studies lessons, she said. A typical example gives students citrus juice production data and teaches them about percentages by asking them to calculate how much production has changed from one year to another.

The program includes four other features, Gaskalla said. One provides grants to pay for school gardens and agricultural field trips. Another brings small lending libraries called Ag Learning Barns to schools, where teachers can check out agriculturally themed books, puzzles and videos for students.

The third feature, AgriSmarts, has officers from The National FFA Organization visit schools to discuss everyday items that come from the farm, she said. The fourth, Ag Literacy Day, brings FFA officers, farmers, ranchers and industry representatives to schools to read a designated children’s book about agriculture to students.

During the 2004 calendar year, FAITC reached more than 5,800 teachers and more than 229,000 students, a 71 percent increase in teachers and a 26 percent increase in students reached compared with 2003, Gaskalla said.

Primary funding for the program comes from sales of Florida’s agriculture specialty license plate, known as the Ag Tag, one of more than 100 specialty license plates created by the state legislature and used to raise funds for charitable causes, she said. The Ag Tag costs $22 more than a regular tag, $20 of which goes to FAITC. In 2004, 16,346 Ag Tags were sold, generating about $327,000 for the program.

“The state funds are a starting point, but volunteers really make the program what it is,” Gaskalla said. “They compound the impact of the Ag Tag dollars many times over.”

Volunteers from UF/IFAS help write the curriculum materials, serve on FAITC’s board of directors, work in outreach programs, build and transport the Ag Learning Barns, and host teacher workshops, she said.

UF/IFAS extension staff find the Ag Learning Barns are a great way to reach schools, said Monica Brinkley, an extension agent in Liberty County and county facilitator for FAITC. The Ag Learning Barns are sets of bookshelves built to look like small, red barns; volunteers move them from school to school during the year.

“I applied for and received funding to build an Ag Learning Barn last year,” Brinkley said. “Once the barn was placed in a school, I offered training to the teachers on how to use the curriculum materials and incorporate agriculture into lessons in science, language skills, math and history. I had a lot of teachers sign up, and some of them went on to apply for grants themselves.”

Teachers like the lesson plans because they are convenient, including information for the teacher and readings and worksheets for the students, said Cyanne Williams, a teacher at Archer Community School near Gainesville.

“The materials are so practical,” Williams said. “My kids can study Florida history and practice their reading skills using the handouts we receive. When we talk about crop production then and now, my students use math to compare crop values. When we went on a field trip to a working farm, part of our lunch was grown in our pioneer garden at school, using information from FAITC.”

The program is a state version of a national program, Agriculture In The Classroom, created in 1981 by private and public entities to promote agricultural literacy on a national scale, said Larry Arrington, UF/IFAS dean for extension. Each state runs its own independent program; Florida’s began in 1986.

“It is critical that our youth understand where their food comes from and the important role that agriculture plays in our state’s economy,” Arrington said. “FAITC is one of our most effective allies in connecting with youth on ag awareness.”

For more information, visit the Florida Agriculture in the Classroom Web site at http://www.agtag.org.

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