Friday, June 25, 11:00-11:50 am

Select your workshop when you register! This year participants will have the opportunity to select their first choice and an alternate for each workshop session time slot when registering. Every effort will be made to provide you with your top choices. Admittance tickets for each session will be in your registration packet. The earlier you register, the better your chances of getting your desired workshop sessions. 

Presenters have designated grade levels for their workshop sessions.  Frequently, the ideas and lessons shared can be adjusted up or down depending on the age of the group you are educating.  The grade levels are merely suggestions and you are welcome to attend any session.  Please understand that the program may change due to circumstances beyond our control which may necessitate session changes.     

#1  Graphing the Food Pyramid with the
     Garden Chef

Grades K-5

David Pippin, Virginia AITC

Graph your way to a balanced diet in this dynamic and cross-curricular workshop.  Participants will use food labels to analyze and evaluate their nutritional intake.  Workshop activities highlight Virginia AITC’s latest creation – the Garden Chef book. Participants will take home their own copy as well as fun new ideas for their classrooms. 

#2  Gardening: An Effective Tool to Teach
     All Subjects  (also offered in Session 5)

  All Levels 

Lisa Gaskalla, Florida AITC 

Attend this workshop to learn how to use schoolyard and classroom gardens to teach all subjects, including agriculture, language arts, math, nutrition, science and social studies.  Florida Agriculture in the Classroom has developed a guide called “Gardening for Grades” that educates teachers and agriculture industry volunteers on how to develop gardens as an effective teaching tool for any subject.  Workshop goers will receive a free copy of “Gardening for Grades” and instruction on how teachers and volunteers can gain support from school administrators, locate grant money to pay for these gardens and use the garden as a teaching tool. It also includes guidance on how to plant different types of gardens such as literature gardens, biofuel gardens, edible gardens and others.

#3  What's in a Cookie?  (also offered in Session 5)

    Grades 3-8 

Staci Disney-Walker, Vermillion County Farm Bureau/Illinois AITC

Kids love to eat cookies, but do they know what ingredients are in a cookie or where those ingredients are grown or produced?  We will travel the globe in search of the ingredients needed to make chocolate chip cookies. Using the book, All in Just One Cookie by Susan Goodman, a series of lesson plans have been produced and gathered to study each of the ingredients. Social studies, English, math and science lessons will take us from Vermont to Hawaii, from Mexico to West Africa and other points of interest along the way. Do you know what’s in a cookie?

#4  Agri-Tales  (also offered in Session 5)

Grades K-4

Tonya Wible, PA Friends of Ag Foundation

Since agricultural concepts are not always front and foremost in the classroom curriculum, educators interested in incorporating agriculture need to find basic skills (sequence, compare & contrast, read to be entertained or informed, write to persuade) that are taught and then give them an “ag” twist.  This session shares some ways that agriculture can connect with fairy tales, folk tales, and nursery rhymes, thereby increasing the opportunity for agricultural concepts to be taught.  Re-meet Jack and the Beanstalk, the Three Little Pigs, Humpty Dumpty and many more characters in lessons that can provide a real “AG” twist!

#5  At Home on the Range with GoogleEarth
         (also offered in Session 5)

 Grades 6-12

Lyndi Perry, Utah AITC

Discover the power of GoogleEarth to explore your states agricultural land. This presentation uses GoogleEarth imaging technology to demonstrate how historical photos and today’s images can be merged to tell an agricultural land’s story and perhaps predict its future. Specifically, this presentation will contrast Forest Service photographs of rangeland, dated between the 1890s and 1960s, with updated photographs and GoogleEarth’s explorative landscapes. The information and methods presented can easily be adapted to highlight environmental issues across the globe, putting them into an interactive, visually-based approach and geographical perspective that can have a major impact on many types of learners.

#6  School Gardens: The Why, When, Where & How

Grades 3-8

Constance Carter, Library of Congress

We will dig into the 19th-century history of school gardens, President Wilson's School Garden Army, and the revival of school and youth gardens in the 21st century to highlight innovative programs.  See how a garden becomes a vehicle for encouraging physical fitness, building character fostering hands-on learning, teamwork, and personal growth. Resources from the Library of Congress (school gardens webcast, handouts, books) and experiences of teachers will enable participants to discover new ways of bringing the school garden into the classroom and lunchroom.

#7  Grains All the Way

  Grades 3-5 

Lacie Ashby, University of Maryland Extension

#8  Music in the Ag Classroom

  Grades K-5

Cheryl Bombenger & Ashley Bombenger, Teaching Activities Done Aesthetically (TADA)

The “Music in the Ag Classroom” series is a combination of songs that teach tunes about farming, nutrition, plants, vegetables and crops, in addition to insects, and historical events.  The songs will excite your students and are tied to all curriculum areas, meeting state standards and benchmarks. Learn how to use songs to improve learning, increase retention, and make your classroom a high energy place of learning.

#9  Exploring the Unknown through Experiments
     (also offered in Session 5)

Grades K-5

Tom Zinnen, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Experience science through experiments based on food; encourage students to develop their skills of expressing and testing ideas; test-drive activities geared to be intriguing, affordable, quick and shareable at home.  Try your hand and your ingenuity at “Which Makes Better Bubbles:  Skim Milk or Whole?”;  follow-up with a parallel exploration of three colors of popcorn; and use an ice-cube tray for your first foray into chemistry by comparing water and vinegar mixed with baking soda and baking powder, sugar and flour, and cornstarch and salt.

#10  Hide and Seek

  Grades 3-12 

Laurie Adelhardt, Owl Creek Consulting

Check out two emerging technologies, GPS receivers and geocaching, by locating hidden data-rich geocaches in the worldwide game of hiding and seeking treasure. Learn about GPS’s development and applications in agriculture, how to find and mark waypoints using GPS receivers, and navigate a geocaching course.  Walk away with ideas and resources for designing and implementing effective learning environments in and outside the classroom to get started in this latest tech adventure.