greenhorns and k-12 outreach initiatives
Greenhorns is working in partnership with Cornell Agricultural Education Department, Heifer International, Cornell Small Farms Program, NOFA NY, Cornell Cooperative Extension, FSA, and other partners in a multifaceted grant project to enhance educational opportunities for youth in agriculture. Our focus in the grant group is public school students in grades 7-12. For this portion of the project our focus is to change attitudes about food, agriculture and farming as a career among ag-teachers and ag-students. Initially we will operate only in the state of NY and later in the whole northeast region. Since this is a research grant, to see if we actually can change attitudes, our first phase of research targets eight schools, with eight control schools. Teachers at the set of target schools will receive professional development training, agricultural posters, a beautiful booklet with teaching resources from the Farm Based Education Association, Farm to School, Shelbourne Farm and Grace Foundation (among others), DVD of educational version of "the Greenhorns" film, online kid-oriented blog, and classroom visit by young farmers.
The purpose of this intervention is to get kids excited about agriculture, to provide a background to teachers who will be guiding students towards an agricultural career track, to raise general ag-literacy in these schools and provide real world role models. In the second and third phases of the project we will provide these materials to a much broader audience in the Northeast region public schools. Our multi-media approach: video, stickers, speakers, posters, teachers booklet, and blog is a power-punch of content aimed at engaging more, new and younger farmers to the agricultural sector-- from diverse backgrounds (urban/ non-farm/ immigrant backgrounds) and to give a fuller, broader picture of what the agricultural sector has to offer.
We bring our full experience as community organizers, promoters of agriculture, media-makers and activist young farmers to this project with the understanding that our country needs many more brains, bodies and businesses in agriculture and our public schools must do all they can to support the cultural project of recruitment.
For more info, visit the USDA Web site.
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