Thursday, August 28, 2008 — Two Stanly County teachers who took the initiative to learn more about North Carolina’s rich agriculture this summer have found ways to incorporate new knowledge into their classrooms.
Teresa Underwood, eighth grade science teacher at Millingport Elementary, and Joyce Whitley, academically and intellectually gifted (AIG) teacher in language arts and reading at Albemarle Middle School, attended a North Carolina Farm Bureau workshop entitled “Linking Literacy to the Environment and Agriculture” in July.
The workshop was held in Raleigh, however, all participants participated in farm tours across the Research Triangle Park, teaching strategies to connect tour experiences with literacy learning and presentations related to misconceptions in agriculture.
Whitley and Underwood agreed that the most valuable thing they learned at the workshop was how important agriculture is and how hard the farmers work day-in and day-out to produce crops.
“I realized how important agriculture is not only to the farm mentality but even to kids,” Whitley said.
“They need to understand the value of land.”
As a science teacher, Underwood has found it quite easy to incorporate knowledge she obtained from the workshop into her lesson plans. In eighth grade, children learn about common problems in North Carolina including pesticides and runoffs.
Participants visited Syngenta in the Research Triangle Park to learn about gene research, pesticide resistant seed and pest resistant seed. The Apex Nursery was also a scheduled stop as well as Central Crops Research Station, J&J; Farms, Max Denning’s Farm and Bayer Environmental Farms.
As a language arts and reading teacher, Whitley has been able to use exercises with her AIG students as well.
“There’s a lot of facts you can mix with all different subjects,” Whitley said.
The workshop was an opportunity provided by Stanly County Schools’ central office as staff development choices at the end of the year. Underwood was a part of a similar workshop. Whitley jumped on board after hearing much discussion on the opportunity.
Whitley and Underwood were actually quizzed during their three-day workshop by other participants in the group. Each group had to make up a number of questions from the experience they had on their farm sites and quiz other groups to see how much they already knew.
Whitley said she learned that the most fertile land is under all of North Carolina’s cities.
“We’ve paved over our greatest resource,” she said.
Underwood agreed and said sometimes people don’t see agriculture as a business, but she learned that it was.
According to statistics recorded in 2007, there are 719 farms in Stanly County, a total acreage of 252,864. Total farmland in the county is 107,549 acres.
Stanly County is ranked 37 out of North Carolina’s 100 counties in total profit coming in from the agricultural business.
“It makes me respect farmers more,” Underwood said.
“We just encourage other teachers to participate if they have that opportunity.”
Contact Sarah Jane Rosser at snaponline26@carolina.rr.com.
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