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LITTLE ROCK — Sarah Glenn, a fourth-grade
teacher at Huntsville Intermediate School, is one of five national
“Excellence in Teaching About Agriculture” award recipients. The U.S.
Department of Agriculture gives the award through its Agriculture in the
Classroom program. Formal recognition for Glenn will come at the 2011
National Agriculture in the Classroom Conference scheduled for June
22-25 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Last year, Arkansas Farm Bureau named Glenn its 2010 Ag in the Classroom Outstanding Teacher.
Glenn says her main goals are to inform and educate
students about the importance of agriculture to the world, the country,
the community and the students as individuals. She says she also wants
them to understand the role that Arkansas plays in a national and
global economy in regards to agriculture.
“I realized that my students had little to no knowledge
about agriculture, and most of them did not have a concept of their
food coming from farms and ranches,” she said.
Glenn says she used Farm Bureau’s Ag in the Classroom program as the foundation for building her classroom curriculum.
“I started the curriculum and have built on it each year
using Ag in the Classroom resources and materials,” she said. That also
included an on-site garden in the shape of the state of Arkansas that
the students planted and grew using an Ag in the Classroom Garden grant
from Farm Bureau.
Glenn says students new to the program have a limited
understanding of the value of items – especially food – or the cost of
everyday living.
“I hope that they will gain a better understanding of the
scarcity of resources, the value of agriculture and the challenges that
others in the world face when it comes to the basics of providing
food, clothing and shelter for their families,” she said.
Guest speakers from all areas of agriculture, field trips
and in-school projects like the garden and the egg incubator all are
part of the program.
“I used an egg incubator to help teach about the poultry
industry that is such a large portion of our agricultural economy,”
Glenn said. “We acquired 50 eggs for our incubator but due to a power
outage, only three eggs hatched. I used this as a lesson to teach the
students how precarious farming can be.”
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