2020 TeachKyAg Annual Report
This past year has brought its challenges, but the Kentucky Agriculture and Environment in the Classroom was able to adjust to serve our Kentucky educators and students thanks to continued support of our sponsors and partners.
Below you will find a snapshot of our impact and how we were able to accomplish our goal of growing ag literacy across the Bluegrass! Through our programs and resources, we estimate that we made
350,000 impressions this past year.
Compared to 2019, we were not able to provide as many school programs and sponsored teacher workshops due to COVID. Sales of material items were also down since many volunteer educators were not able to use these items by visiting classrooms. We were thankful, however, that several Cooperative Extension Service offices provided take home activity kits which included our resources.
Organizations providing $10,000 or more in sponsorships and Grants
Expenses by Program
Resource Development and Distribution
$62,826
Teacher Workshops & Communications
$15,597
Volunteer Workshops
$7,777
Mobile Science Activity Centers
$7,678
EngAGe Kentucky
$5,022
Feeding Kentucky: STEM
$4,228
Poster & Essay Contest
$2,400
Program Highlights
Resources, Workshops & Curriculum Development
KyAEC spends most of its budget on curriculum development, education resources, and providing educator communications and training workshops. More than 3,000 teachers and educators received information from KyAEC or KyAEC’s partners on how to integrate agriculture-based lessons in schools or their ag literacy programs.
Ag Literacy Network Workshop – KyAEC, with support from the Kentucky Department of Agriculture and KADF, provided nearly $10,000 in resources to 35 educators. Most of the participants are farmers, county extension, and conservation district professionals who connect with students on agriculture subjects.
Crittenden County Teacher Workshop – KyAEC assisted Kentucky Farm Bureau in providing a workshop and for 75 teachers in Crittenden County in February. Middle and high school teachers received several resources to use in their classrooms. All teachers received the Kentucky Ready Set Grow curriculum guide produced through a KyAEC/KFB partnership and USDA Specialty Crop Grant in 2019.
Kentucky Farms Feed Me Virtual Field Trip Series – In a partnership with Kentucky Farm Bureau, KADF, and the Kentucky Corn Growers Association, 10 new virtual farm field trip videos were released:
Showing Pigs at the Kentucky State Fair - Colton Fitzpatrick & Shady Rest Farms
Corn - Joseph Sisk & UK Grain and Forage Center of Excellence
Soybeans - Barry Alexander, Cundiff Farms
Wheat - Mandy Thompson Bryant, Long Vue Farms
Beef Cattle - The Guinn Family
Poultry - David Hayden, Hayden Farms
Dairy Cattle - Chaney’s Dairy Barn
Kentucky Horse Park
Apples - Mulberry Orchard
Vegetables - Courtney Farms
Several teacher workshops were held the end of July to show teachers how to use the field trips and new digital companion resources. In August, KyAEC provided the same workshop for Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service staff, so they could use the videos and lessons with their in-school programs. In October, KyAEC provided the workshop to teachers participating in the Kentucky Council for the Social Studies, sharing how they could meet social studies and career standards in primary grades by using the series
New Agriculture Teacher Workshops and Resource Kits – Thanks to support from the Kentucky Department of Agriculture and KADF, 29 teachers were outfitted with a kit of resources and lessons valued at $750 each. Some of those resources are also sponsored by our farm organizations sponsors. The workshop was led by Central Hardin agriculture teacher Rachel Wilson.
Sponsor a Classroom Program – This program allows local farm organizations, businesses, and individuals to sponsor a kit of resources for teachers in their school districts. A live, in-person workshop is provided when at least 10 kits are sponsored. Workshops that had been scheduled were postponed, but several individuals and organizations provided kits for teachers this year, including Glen and Becky Kinder, Fayette Co. Farm Bureau, Bullitt Co. Farm Bureau, and the Kentucky Poultry Federation. The 400 teachers in the program were offered a new round of resources, most of which were consumable resources they use each year. New resources are provided by our farm organization sponsors.
Soybean Seed Germination Activity – Thanks to support by Kentucky Soybean Board and program modifications, we provided germinations kits to more than 150 classrooms and nearly 10,000 students this past year. Plant life cycles are part of the Next Generation Science Standards public schools are required to teach, but many home and parochial schools also took advantage of this lesson.
FFA Ag Literacy Grants – Thanks to support from the Kentucky Pork Producers, KyAEC awarded six FFA chapters a total of $6,360 to cover the costs of supplies and resources so they may teach younger students and the public in their community about agriculture. Calloway County is providing several STEM-based activities at North Calloway Elementary. Grayson County is teaching the county’s 250 third graders about pollinators and bee keeping by providing books through the Unite to Read Program. Carter Woodson Academy FFA in Lexington is hosting monthly virtual ag story time meetings, teaching nutrition by working with FoodChain Lex, and supplementing their agriculture education program. Royal Spring Middle School in Scott Co. is working to create an Urban Ag Club at Georgetown Middle School and teaching hands on agriculture lessons at Anne Mason Elementary. Other programs are in the works. Learn more
Digital Curriculum Development – KyAEC has been working to transition many of its popular lessons to Google Classroom friendly documents so teachers can easily share them virtually. All lessons are linked through this web site.
KyAEC’s web sites received 35,000 unique visitors and 64,000 page views.
Pride in Ag Education with The Farmer’s Pride – KyAEC continues to provide content for the twice-monthly newspaper that makes its way into more than 100 agriculture classrooms across the state. The Pride in Ag Education page runs from September through May. Earlier in 2020, we focused on several of Kentucky’s agricultural organizations. This school year, we are revisiting Ag Career Profiles for the first issue of each month. The second issue tackles food production and purchase issues, which is part of our EngAGe Kentucky program. Each article that appears in the paper is also published on our Kentucky agriculture resource web site, http://www.kyfoodandfarm.com.
Mobile Programs
KyAEC supports the KDA Mobile Science Activity, the Feeding Kentucky STEM Adventure Program, and EngAGe Kentucky. Each of these programs had limited reach this year due to school closings and virtual learning, but we found ways to continue to connect with teachers and students.
Mobile Science Activity Centers – The traveling science lab trailers operated by the Kentucky Department of Agriculture were able to run through mid-March and reached 9,334 students in the limited time. Both the west and central trailers were booked through the school year. It is unknown how soon the trailers will be able to resume in 2021, but staff has continued to connect with the schools they serve by sharing KyAEC’s other resources and programs. Miss Kentucky Alex Francke, who assists with the KDA’s marketing efforts during her reign (which was extended another year) made several videos featuring MSAC experiments and agriculture professionals in the spring and summer to reach a larger audience. Those videos were shared by the national Miss America Organization.
Feeding Kentucky: A STEM Adventure – This program is also on hold during the pandemic, but KyAEC was able to visit several schools earlier in the year to engage students in science and career based activities within in the school. Several volunteers are required for this program, and we were happy to work with local FFA chapters. Agriculture students helped us teach at each of the stations, and chapters were awarded $100 gifts they could use for their own programming. Feeding Kentucky was supported the Kentucky Pork Producers, Kentucky Soybean, KADF, and the Kentucky Small Grain Growers Association.
EngAGe Kentucky – With assistance from the Kentucky Livestock Coalition, Kentucky Soybean Board, and the Kentucky Agricultural Development Fund, TeachKyAg developed this program to assist the growing number of Kentucky classrooms choosing food production subjects for their argument writing units, as well as providing students a deeper understanding of food production in their agriculture, science environment, and FCS classrooms. KyAEC visited several culinary classrooms last winter prior to the pandemic, thanks to a partnership with the Kentucky Restaurant Association’s ProStart program. We also modified several lessons to be more digital classroom friendly, and we shared those with secondary teachers to use in conjunction with the EngAGe Kentucky food articles.
In September, KyAEC announced that Warren Beeler joined the EngAGe Kentucky team to provide presentations to schools, leadership, and civic groups similar to what he provided when leading the Governor’s Office of Agriculture Policy. Warren will be ready to hit the highways in 2021, once it is safe to meet. Anyone interested in having Warren speak at their school or event, should visit https://www.teachkyag.org/engageky or call 855-921-2625.
Awards for the Kentucky Agriculture Poster and Essay Contest
Winning 12th Grade 2020 Poster by Lilly Mooney, Bullitt County
KyAEC provides $100 for each winner of the contest administered by the Kentucky Department of Agriculture. The 2020 theme was “Kentucky: Ready, Set, Grow,” which was tied to the garden curriculum developed in 2019. Winners from the 2020 contest were not able to attend a ceremony, but KDA hopes to invite them to the 2021 awards ceremony. The theme for 2021 is “Kentucky Agriculture Never Stops.” The contest is open to any Kentucky youth in grades K-12. Entry information can be found at www.teachkyag.org.
Operations and Marketing
KyAEC is operated by Jennifer Elwell, of Farm Scholar LLC. She maintains an office in Shepherdsville and manages the programs and resources with her support staff:
Rachel Wilson, an agriculture teacher at Central Hardin High School, assists with curriculum development, teacher communications, and workshops.
Elizabeth Pressley provides resource manufacturing and distribution support.
Julie McGee facilitates the Feeding Kentucky STEM program.
Warren Beeler has joined the team as the official travelling Engage Kentucky and KyAEC spokesperson.
Also new to the team is Jennifer McNulty, a retired science teacher from Richmond. McNulty will be providing curriculum development and teacher workshops, as well as reviewing current curriculum.
The success of KyAEC is also dependent upon our leadership and the many organizations, farmers, and agribusiness professionals who work in their communities to grow agricultural literacy.
