By Julie Tomascik
Editor

Teachers across the state brought agriculture to life for their students through Texas Farm Bureau’s (TFB) Ag Literacy Week, which was held in conjunction with National Ag Week, on March 20-24.

“The goal of this program was to grow agricultural literacy among students,” Carson Read, Educational Outreach coordinator, said. “Farm Bureau provided a way for teachers to connect agriculture to topics and concepts they are teaching in their classrooms through fun and educational activities.”

Over 2,500 public, private and homeschool K-5 teachers signed up to receive a free, accurate ag book to read during the week, as well as an educator’s guide and TEKS-aligned lessons and activities.

The free book that was provided by TFB was I LOVE Strawberries. The short book offers a child’s perspective on growing strawberries. It also helps students understand the hard work and dedication it takes to get food from the field to the table.

Teachers like April Langford and Sandy Hudspeth used the free resources to introduce agriculture into the week’s lesson plans.

“We were able to connect it to all content areas—reading, math, social studies and science,” said Langford, a first-grade teacher at Latexo Elementary School. “I know my students are getting literature that is agriculturally sound and gives them real information.”

It’s a learning opportunity for students but also for teachers.

“I even learned things when we were watching the video of them harvesting the strawberries,” Langford said. “I never knew they were harvested by hand, and we were able to talk about how agriculture has different jobs and how the strawberries go to the grocery stores where they buy them.”

The Ag Literacy Week program resources could be adapted for kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms.

“It’s so great to bring agriculture into the classroom because the students, even though we live in a rural area, they don’t know what all goes into their food or the products they get,” said Hudspeth, who teaches kindergarten in Goldthwaite.

In addition to the resources provided, Shannon Anderson, the author of I LOVE Strawberries, shared fun facts and a video of her reading the book with the participating classrooms.

TFB’s goal is to expand student knowledge about agriculture and help students grow into more informed consumers, while also providing resources that educators can use.

View the #ReadAgBooksTX on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to see more teachers reading the book.

TFB also works year-round to increase agricultural literacy in Texas classrooms through a variety of in-classroom programs, lessons, resources, grants and teacher professional development. More information on those opportunities and resources is available at texasfarmbureau.org/aitc.

Farm Bureau, teachers celebrate Ag Literacy Week Over 2,500 public, private and homeschool K-5 teachers shared about agriculture this week in their classrooms as part of Ag Literacy Week.