Home > News & Media > Highlands County FFA, 4-H members take part in Ag Literacy Day
Highlands County FFA, 4-H members take part in Ag Literacy Day
News Sun – April 29, 2011
Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam kicked off Florida Agriculture Literacy Day April 25 by reading to 70 second, third, fourth and fifth graders at Shady Hill Elementary in Ocala and 120 fifth graders at Columbia City Elementary in Lake City.
The official Florida Agriculture Literacy Day was Tuesday, April 26.
Highlands County volunteers joined forces with more than 1,200 agriculture industry volunteers to read to more than 60,000 Florida students.
The volunteers read from one of two books that are part of a series developed specifically for the annual event. One is a new book, “Florida Farms at Work,” written and illustrated by Nathan Brown, which introduces students to a variety of careers in agriculture, from farmers and scientists to truck drivers and grocers.
The other book, “These Florida Farms,” written by Gary Seamans and illustrated by Mike Wright, is the first in the series and shows students how food comes from a farm, not a store, and about the variety of commodities grown in Florida.
Florida Agriculture Literacy Day’s books display a variety of aspects of Florida agriculture throughout the vibrantly colored rhyming books, which makes students eager to listen and learn about Florida agriculture.
“Children are naturally curious about agriculture, which makes it easy for teachers to later use the concepts taught on Florida Agriculture Literacy Day to teach core subjects like math, science, language arts and science,” Florida Agriculture in the Classroom Chairman Jennifer Sills said.
She participated in Commissioner Putnam’s press conferences Monday at the two elementary schools. Florida Agriculture Literacy Day is a partnership between the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and Florida Agriculture in the Classroom, a non-profit organization charged with educating Florida students and teachers about the importance of agriculture.
In addition to Florida Agriculture Literacy Day, Florida Agriculture in the Classroom uses funding it receives from sales of the agriculture specialty license plate known as the “Ag Tag” to provide curricula, materials, workshops, grant money and other programs to teachers and agriculture industry volunteers throughout the year.
For more information about specific counties or schools participating in Florida Agriculture Literacy Day, contact Rachael Ryals at (352) 846-1391/(352) 339-0853 or ryalsr@ufl.edu.
Highlands County 4-H programs were on board for this very important community service project.
4-H members visited schools in Avon Park, Sebring, and Lake Placid.
4-H members representing Avon Park were Shelby Ball, Roxanne Guerndt, Taylor Hedrick, Brittany Gates, Sarah Hunnicutt, and Taylor Brown.
Reading from the Sebring 4-H Clubs were Megan Stein, Justin Bickman, Cassie Hare, Megan Sowards, Julia VanFleet, Stephanie Halliday, Amanda Killmon, Jenna Leigh LaBarr, William Brunner, Kitty Lackey, Juliette Perez, Mariah Brewington, and Cheyenne Simmons.
Promoting Ag Literacy in Lake Placid was Hannah Thompson.
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