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If you want to influence future generations, try reaching today’s teachers. Ohio Farm Bureau has focused much attention on educating the educators about agriculture this past year. The effort has been well worth it, according to Judy Roush, OFBF promotion and education specialist.

A grant from the Agriculture in the Classroom Consortium, combined with funding from OFBF’s promotion and education and agricultural ecology programs, allowed OFBF to offer special mini-grants to local Soil and Water Conservation Districts (SWCD) and county Farm Bureaus. This year, 29 county SWCDs shared 12 grants to present information about watersheds to all ages of students. Roush said many counties used the funds to hold special training for teachers to introduce the program Window on Your Waterways, which was developed with funding from OFBF.

The mini-grant program allowed OFBF to partner with county Farm Bureaus, their promotion and education and agricultural ecology committees, local SWCDs and local school districts.

Funding for a second year of the program will be available starting in January 2005, Roush said.

Other educational efforts involved COSI’s Agriculture Adventures program that visits elementary schools and presents information about agriculture during an assembly and how the industry impacts students’ lives. This is the fifth year OFBF and COSI have partnered to support the program. By spring 2005, more than 250,000 students will have heard the Agriculture Adventures story.

This year’s partnership with the North Market for "to market, to market" reached 500 students from seven schools in the central Ohio area and provided training for about 50 volunteers. One teacher called the event an "anchoring experience" – one that will allow teachers to reference the visit for students throughout the school year.

Annual teacher summer workshops give teachers a week’s worth of activities and hands-on experiences to use in their classrooms.

And for the second year, Columbus Public Schools science teachers have visited the Farm Science Review to see "real equipment and real farmers" and to see how science plays an important role in the industry, Roush said.

Caption: Kathy Rhoads, center, from Rhoads Farm Market, shows students participating in this year’s "to market, to market" how to properly measure a pumpkin.