Our Rural Roots

Katie Pratt, Contributor

Ag in the Classroom may be my job, but it is a passion.

I enjoy spending 30 minutes in a classroom engaging with students about farming and food, plants and animals. In a school year, I see more than 5,000 students, some of them once a month and others every week.

Two years ago, the third-grade teachers at Jefferson Elementary asked if I'd host their students for a farm field trip. I visit these seven classrooms each month. We cover pigs, dairy cows, poinsettias, plant nutrition, grains, pumpkins and other topics that pop into conversation. Students' curiosity has no bounds.

We host groups on the farm all the time -- visiting international farmers, friends of friends, classes we've adopted through the Farm Bureau's Adopt-A-Classroom program. We've hosted farm-to-table dinners as fundraisers for local organizations, but 200 students?

My announcement at the dinner table was met with a few groans. "In May?!" "How many people?!" Thankfully, my family only grumbles for effect.

For two years now, we've hosted this third grade, their teachers and chaperones. We start at my parents' farm visiting the cattle on pasture, talking to my niece about goats and a neighbor about her chickens. On the bus ride up to my farm, they play "Where's Agriculture?," a scavenger hunt for farm-related items that can be seen from the bus windows.

At my farm, we have lunch, crawl into tractors, explore agriculture careers, run an acre and test their plant knowledge. Two FFA chapters, 4-H members, the county Master Gardeners, Farm Bureau and others come when called to ensure the two-day field trip is a success.

Exhausted, we part at day's end with a lot of high fives. "This was the best field trip ever!" Sometimes the simple experiences are the most memorable.

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-- Katie Pratt writes and spreads agriculture's message from a north-central Illinois farm. Visit https://theillinoisfarmgirl.com/… to follow her blog.

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