Ag Education was all over the Map of Cook County
Our 2020-21 virtual school presentations have concluded! Reading the evaluations provided by many teachers, we can see the impact we had on the 12,000+ students we reached in classrooms throughout our county. Our team of presenters included Jim Bloomstrand, Sarah Koukol, Kathy Lesser, and Linda Schaeffer, who braved the world of Zoom and Google Meets to share our various agriculture themed programs, with most schools selecting our Introduction to Agriculture in Illinois and/or There’s Ag on MyPlate options (https://bit.ly/CCFBAgLit).
Here are just a few comments shared with us when asked about the biggest takeaway of these programs.
- Empowering students to make more informed choices about what they eat and drink.
- Learning so much about agriculture in our very own state! Our kiddos were so hooked!
- Students were extremely interested in agricultural products and our grade level will plan how to incorporate more content in our current units.
- Kids were able to make real life connections to the presentation... which led to great discussion afterwards.
- The number of jobs in the agriculture field.
- Students were very impressed to learn how much work, time, and people it takes to produce and make an item.
Our Agriculture in the Classroom also offered two seasonal lessons titled Apples & Pumpkins Fall Fun (teaching about the growth, development of these specialty crops) and Keeping Warm with Agriculture (featuring fiber production). We were also excited to get special requests for custom programs (https://bit.ly/CustomAg). Finally, our virtual Ag Day offered another engagement option for students to learn about agriculture locally through our partnership with The Children’s Farm.
Thank you to all the schools, teachers, and partners who embraced our virtual offerings this school year. While we did not log a lot of miles, we sure logged a lot of Zooms and Google Meet time and we loved it! We cannot wait to share our programming with you next school year and welcome any inquires you may have over the summer. Let us know how we can help you by emailing Diane at [email protected] or giving us a call at the office.
