Author: Linda McClanahan
Planning Unit: Mercer County CES
Major Program: Agriculture
Plan of Work: Agriculture & Environment Education for Youth
Outcome: Initial Outcome
Mercer County Extension Office, Mercer County Farm Bureau Federation and Mercer County FFA have successfully teamed up in the past with Mercer County Schools and Mercer County Family Resource Youth Services Center to incorporate agriculture in the classroom and raise students' agricultural awareness. Even with COVID-19 restrictions limited learning to the virtual environment there was a desire from all parties involved to continue these successful programs including FarmSCool Week (Preschool-2nd grade) and Ag Day (3rd grade). Due to time restrictions for teachers and students it was decided to make both of these activities be week-long activities featuring 2 commodities/topics per day via Google Classroom/Google Drive. Mercer County Extension Agents and program assistants worked diligently to pull together resources made available primarily through Kentucky Agriculture & Environment in the Classroom, film instructional videos for teachers on how the week was set up and resources available, set up a Google Drive for each of the programs and develop teacher evaluation surveys. Featured topics included pollinators, vegetables, grain, tractors, beef, dairy, equine, sheep, goats, rabbits, and food safety. Teachers indicated this was a great way to deliver the program and content working around COVID-19. Teachers further indicated how critical these programs are as many students do not have experience of being on a farm, learning about where their food is coming from and interacting with agriculture.
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