FARMING FUN
Students learn lessons from state’s labor commissioner
Farm jobs are cool and there are all kinds to choose from.
That’s what state Labor Commissioner Roberta Reardon told kids in award-winning teacher Amy Gosier’s first-grade classroom at Milton Terrace Elementary School.
Reardon read the children’s book, “On the Farm, At the Market,” in conjunction with New York Agricultural Literacy Week activities. The illustrated story helps students understand the many steps and hard work involved with agricultural production and its importance to rural economies.
“We should all say thank you to farmers,” Reardon said on Wednesday. “They work very early in the morning when the sun comes up and when the sun goes down.”
There are more than
4,000 dairy farms alone in New York, but many farmers are age 60 or older.
“We want to make sure we have new farmers coming in to take over for farmers who are retiring,” Reardon said. “One way to do it is to come out to read to children and let them understand that this is what happens on a farm.
“This is where your food comes from.”
Gosier won the 2018 National Award for Excellence in Teaching about Agriculture in the elementary school category.
Last year, she was introduced to a neighbor’s father, Bob Casterton, who raises corn and soybeans in Iowa. He’s also a strong advocate for agricultural education.
“He asked if we would be interested in Skyping from his farm,” Gosier said. “So I created this whole integrated curriculum on corn. It taught writing, math and a lot of science, all built around corn. We Skyped with him during his fall harvest time. The theme was: Where does your food come from?”
“Lots of people take this for granted,” she said. “Initially, kids will say, ‘Oh it comes from the store.’ So this teaches them that there’s a lot of work behind it. They really need to understand all that goes into farming. As the land in agriculture is shrinking and the population is growing, it’s creating a problem that we need to solve, of how we’re going to feed the world.”
Bringing lessons into the classroom will hopefully spark children’s interest in ag-related fields.
“It could be farming or it could be engineering,” Gosier said. “Mr. Casterton who we Skype with is an engineer for John Deere tractor company. There’s so many jobs available that can support agriculture.”
She first won the New York Agriculture in the Classroom Award, making her eligible for the national honor. This award included a $500 stipend and an all-expenses-paid trip to last summer’s National Agriculture in the Classroom Conference in Portland, Me.
“I also got $100 to spend in the Ag in the Classroom store, which I used to purchase more teaching materials about agriculture,” she said.
Reardon said technology is having a major impact on the jobs farmers do.
“For young people we want to make sure they understand that if you go into agriculture now, it’s not just putting things in the ground or milking a cow,” she said. “There’s a lot of computer science and ag science. It’s a very exciting part of the industry.”
New York has one of the longest running and largest Agricultural Literacy Week programs in the country.
Each year, thousands of volunteers visit schools throughout the state to read an agriculturalthemed book to firstthrough third-graders. Students are taught interactive lessons from volunteers sharing their farm experiences, and teachers are given follow-up activities to continue such educational opportunities throughout the school year.
Agricultural Literacy Week is organized by New York Agriculture in the Classroom, a partnership of Cornell University, the state agriculture and education departments, Cornell Cooperative Extension and New York Farm Bureau.
Its mission is to foster awareness, understanding, and appreciation of how food and fiber are produced.
A record $3.6 million was allocated in the 201718 state budget for agricultural education programs, including a state-of-the-art test kitchen and food science lab. Funding was also used to expand Agriculture in the Classroom, double the number of certified agricultural educators, and add 100 New York Future Farmers of America chapters across the state.
The agriculture department announced Wednesday that 10 new FFA chapters have been started this school year in New York. FFA membership has increased to approximately 7,000 members statewide, up from 4,500 members in the past few years.