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Ohio Farm Bureau’s Ag in the Classroom program recently partnered with the Newspapers in Education program at The Columbus Dispatch to have information from the Lessons in Economics kit placed in the Dispatch’s weekly Newspapers in Education section.

The topic was "Supply, Demand, and Price" and the information was based on an exercise about how the price of apples is affected when events such as insect attack or good news about the health benefits of apples occur. The column noted that the lessons meet the Ohio Academic Content Standards. In addition, OFBF offered teachers a free What Grows in Ohio poster; all they had to do was request it through the Dispatch’s Newspapers in Education Web site.

According to the Newspaper Association of America Foundation, Newspapers in Education (NIE) is a cooperative effort between schools and newspapers to promote the use of newspapers as an educational resource. OFBF Education Specialist Judy Roush met a member of the Dispatch’s NIE staff at a COSI event last year. They set up a meeting and Roush shared the numerous agricultural education resources available through OFBF. The Dispatch made a commitment at that meeting to feature agriculture in a spring 2007 edition, Roush said.

The Dispatch has a circulation of more than 500,000 daily readers in Ohio. If OFBF had to purchase the half-page of space it was given, it would have cost thousands of dollars, so this was an incredible partnership, Roush said. She plans to work with the Dispatch again next year; so far 32 teachers have requested the free What Grows in Ohio poster, according to Roush.

The Lessons in Economics Kits are available for $40 and include a video, CD of activities and all student worksheets. Contact Susan Gaughan, 614-246-8298 or sgaughan@ofbf.org to order. Additional education resources are available in the For Teachers and Parents section of the OurOhio.org Web site.