March Comments for a Cause - North Central Iowa Ag in the Classroom

It is the 1st of March so that means two things: it is time to announce last month's Comments of a Cause totals and this month's new cause.  First, February's results!  It has been so fun creating a Comments for a Cause program on my blog and to be able to share about the Iowa FFA Foundation in February.  In February I had a total of 48 comments, equaling a donation of $24.00.  I will be sending this into the Foundation's "I Believe" campaign that is working to erase the debt on the Iowa FFA Enrichment Center.  Thank you to everyone that commented this past month!

Now it is time to announce March's cause.  During the month of March I will be donating $0.50 for every comment to the North Central Iowa Ag in the Classroom!  This 501(c)3 non-profit organization offers a variety of programs and lessons in six counties in North Iowa.  I think this approach to offering agricultural education to students is unique and works.  I look forward to helping their efforts through this month's Comments for a Cause.

Ag in the Classroom is a national program that is coordinated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and at the state level many state Farm Bureaus and Extension programs manage the programs.  It was created in 1981 because those in agriculture, business, education and government saw a lack of understanding of agriculture.  As more and more youth grow further removed from the farm, the need for agriculture education increases.  In Iowa, Ag in the Classroom is managed by the Iowa Farm Bureau and individual county Farm Bureaus.  In 1998, five North Central Iowa county Farm Bureaus got together to pool their materials and resources so the youth of North Iowa would be better served.  In 2004 this group officially became a non-profit organization and hired two part-time employees.  One of these staff members works on grant writing and finding sponsorships, and the other works on developing curriculum.  Both of these staff members do in the classroom lessons and programs.  The program was so successful, and the need for agriculture education continued to grow, that a third part-time employee joined the organization in 2006 and in 2008 an additional county was added to the service area.

LP loves the chicken embryology program too!
Classrooms that participate in this lesson learn actually have eggs
hatch in their classroom and learn about the embryology process

The three staff members of the North Central Iowa Ag in the Classroom are passionate about agriculture and do such a great job with the students.  Whenever the program visits my local school I love to come and help them out.  I can't believe the retention from year to year that the students have.  Being in Iowa, the staff always touches on agriculture products such as corn and soybeans, but they offer programs and lessons on everything from ethanol to conservation to one of my favorites, embryology.  Besides in the classroom lessons that the staff leads and presents, the organization also provides teacher resources, farm tours and pizzathons.  In my local county we also host an Ag Day for all 3rd graders in the entire county at our county fairgrounds.

So be sure to Comment for a Cause this month to help out this great program that serviced over 9,000 students in 27 school districts in the 2012-2013 school year, which is only expected to grow this year!

Do you have an Ag in the Classroom program in your local school?  Have you ever participated in it?

Harvest Blogger's Tour 2012

For the 2nd year, Franklin County Tourism, Franklin County Farm Bureau and Latham Hi-Tech Seeds, hosted a Harvest Blogger's Tour.  This year's Harvest Tour took place over this past weekend and had bloggers from Iowa, Illinois, Missouri and New Hampshire.  This is a great opportunity to showcase Franklin County, Iowa from agriculture, to entertainment, to great food!  There are two requirements of the bloggers that participate:

1. They must find a way to get themselves to Hampton, Iowa for the weekend.
2. They must blog about their experiences.

If they do those two things, the entire weekend (Friday-Sunday) is taken care of for them - lodging, food, entertainment, etc.  A few things the bloggers did over the weekend this year include going on a tour of the Old Stone House, toured the REA plant, went star gazing while sampling wine from a local winery (Town's End Winery), went on a tour of the Franklin County Historical Society Museum and Grandpa's Farm, went shopping in downtown Hampton, went to the Windsor Theater for a live Vaudeville show, and participated in the Harriman-Nielsen Historic Farm Fall Festival.

I was happy to be able to join the group for awhile on Saturday while they focused on agriculture.  To start with, the group traveled to Latham Hi-Tech Seeds and heard from the North Central Iowa Ag in the Classroom staff about the program, as well as went through a couple of the lessons that they do for kids in local schools.

Ag in the Classroom

Then the group went on a tour at Latham's.  Following the tour, the group went to the Roy Arend's Farm, where they got to go on tractor and combine rides.

Blogger group with the Roy Arend's Farm Family

It was great to interact with the bloggers.  They had a lot of great questions about agriculture in Iowa.  The Harvest Blogger's Tour is a great opportunity to not only promote tourism to Franklin County and Iowa, but it is a great chance to spread the messages of agriculture to new audiences through the bloggers followers.

I can't wait to see what results from this year's Harvest Blogger's Tour and I can't end this post without linking my requested Sweet & Spicy Hog Wild Baked Beans recipe!

Dairy, Sheep, Tootsie Rolls, Ethanol...

You might wonder how a post can cover Dairy, Sheep, Tootsie Rolls and Ethanol - well, the answer is that earlier today LP and I headed into our local school to help with Ag in the Classroom.

In our area, our Ag in the Classroom program is unique.  It is a 501(c)3 organization with three part-time employees who go out to schools in six counties to deliver the programs, develop the curriculum, and work on grants and sponsorship for the program.  All six counties' Farm Bureau boards are sponsors of the organization.  In the last school year the program visited nearly 7,000 students in over 20 school districts.

At our school visit today we visited students grades Kindergarten through 5th grade.  Ag in the Classroom has been visiting our local school for the last six years and I was impressed with how much information the students retained from previous years' programs.  In Iowa two of our main commodities are corn and soybeans.  Each classroom visit starts with reviewing what field corn and soybeans are used for.  All the kids remembered that the top purpose for both of these is that they are fed to animals.  Then they talk how they consume the products (high fructose corn syrup, soybean oil, soy lecithin, etc.) and how the commodities are used for fuels (ethanol and biodiesel).

LP helping with the 4th grade "Where did my supper come from?" activity

Here is a quick list of the programs we did today.  If you are interested in learning anymore about any of these curriculums, contact the North Central Iowa Ag in the Classroom organization.

Kindergarten:  Dairy - The students learned the story of a dairy cow and the production of milk.  They also made their own butter.
1st Grade:  My Farm Connection - The students matched up products that came from several commodities.
2nd Grade:  Sheep - The students read a book about sheep and making wool.  Then they carded their own sample of wool and died it with Kool-Aid.
3rd Grade:  What's in my Tootsie Roll? - The students learned about the production of cocoa and the creation of chocolate.  They also learned about reading food labels.
4th Grade:  Where did my supper come from? - The students first identified on a map worksheet the top producing states of many ag commodities.  Then they received different supper menus and had to decide what ingredients were used in their supper, along with what state(s) those ingredients would have come from.
5th Grade:  Ethanol - The students made their own "ethanol" by crushing up animal crackers (corn and sugars), added yeast and hot water and then watched a "chemical reaction" occur.  They also walked through the process of an ethanol plant.