Spring 2014 Newsletter Now Available Online! AgriScience Excellence Award Winner Summer Graduate Course Summer Conference Calendar Photo Contest Dairy Grants Available Who Grew My Soup? Books Celebrate our 30th years of promoting agricultural education by making a donation to support MAC. Gardening Resources MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE IN THE CLASSROOM Anna Cynar Anna Cynar from North Central Charter Essential School in Fitchburg (center) was presented with the AgriScience Excellence award at our Winter Conference by Susan Lavoie, Vice President of Eastern States (left) and Marjorie Cooper, President of MAC (right). Massachusetts Agriculture in the Classroom | May 2014 Summer Conference We are happy to announce that MAC will host our Second Summer Conference connecting the classroom to the school garden. The tentative location is Algonquin Regional High School, Northboro on August 5. We are now working to confirm the date. Check our website for updates and workshop titles and descriptions.We are looking for educators who are active in the school garden to offer workshops connecting the classroom and the school garden. Send an e-mail to MAC at [email protected] with your workshop idea. Ag Calendar Photo Contest calendarcover2014 The Mass. Agriculture Calendar is an excellent resource that serves as an educational tool for teachers, legislators and the public, providing an attractive daily reminder of the diversity of agriculture across the state, with educational tips and website links on each page. The calendar is a collaboration between the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources and MAC, the beneficiary of all sales and sponsorships. Each calendar month features one full-size photograph portraying a local farm or farm product. An additional smaller photograph is included on most pages. The photographs for the 2015 Massachusetts Agriculture Calendar will be selected from winning entries submitted by amateur photographers for the 2014 Massachusetts Agriculture Calendar Photo Contest. Send a picture of any Bay State farm, animal, field crop or floral display to the Calendar Photo Contest by June 1, 2014. Copies of photos from the 2013 Calendar can be found on the MAC website. To enter the contest, visit MDAR’s website at mass.gov/agr/massgrown/docs/photo-contest-entry-form.pdf . Summer Graduate Course 2014 Spend an educational summer with MAC on farms across the state learning about agriculture and connections to the classroom. Our three-credit Summer Graduate Course is co-sponsored with Fitchburg State University. The course meets Tuesday, July 1 and Thursday August 7 at the Brigham Hill Community Farm in North Grafton from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Each participant must attend both sessions and also participate in six additional workshops during the summer, selected from nine workshops on farms across the state, on a variety of topics. Participants will also keep a journal of their agricultural journey and develop three new ag. lessons plans, one of which they will present to their peers on August 7. The fee for this eight day course is $500. Schedule of Workshops on the Farm Each workshop costs $40 or included as part of the Summer Graduate Course Tuesday, July 8: Technology on a Dairy Farm with STEM Connections for the Classroom – Barstow’s Dairy Farm in Hadley Thursday, July 10: Fibers, Felting, and Fun – Jensen Homestead, Worthington and Phantom Farm, Worthington Tuesday, July 15: Success on the Farm and in the Classroom – Smolak Farms in North Andover Thursday, July 17: Raising Children’s Awareness of Agriculture and Restoring a Family Farm and Apiary at Bernin Branch YMCA and Akin Bak Farm, Franklin Tuesday, July 22: Forestry Management and Maple Sugar Production on a Family Farm at Curtis Farm, Westminster Thursday, July 24: Animals, Minerals, & Vegetables – Heifer Farm, Rutland Tuesday, July 29: The Benefits of Agriculture Education – Norfolk Agricultural School, Walpole Thursday, July 31: Farming Opportunities for Individuals with Disabilities – Cape Abilities, Marston Mills & Dennis Read more about our Graduate Course. or Read more about Summer Workshops on the Farm. School Garden Resources Available Massachusetts Agriculture in the Classroom offers a number of Resources to support School Gardening efforts. These include resource Directories of School gardens in Massachusetts and resources that support school gardens; 16 How-to-Guides for Getting Started in the School Garden; 40 garden-based lessons for grades 1 through 4 and garden mentoring. View garden-based resources or tell us about your school garden now. Read our Program Assistant Alices School Garden Blog here. MAC Spring Newsletter The Massachusetts Agriculture in the Classroom spring newsletter is available on the web. The four-page teacher resource is on anaerobic digestion and its use on Massachusetts Dairy farms. Additional articles describe MACs Summer Graduate Course, workshops, conferences, the new Soup Book resources, our AgriScience Excellence award winner and the Mass. Ag Calendar photo contest. A complete set of Teacher Resources from previous newsletters are also available. Read More 2014 AgriScience Excellence Award Winner Anna Cynar (North Central Charter Essential School, Fitchburg) The Board of Directors of MAC along with the Massachusetts Trustees of Eastern States Exposition are pleased to announce that our 2014 winner of the AgriScience Excellence Award is Anna Cynar, Life Science teacher (Biology, Ecology and Anatomy) at North Central Charter Essential School in Fitchburg. This award is given to a teacher who has done at outstanding job of bringing agriculture to the classroom. The prize is accompanied by a plaque, $200 classroom grant and a September trip to The Big E for teacher and his/her students. Anna took our 2014 Summer Graduate Course, where we were all impressed with her dedication to her students. In addition to the course, she spent last summer and this school year working with a committee to plan the landscape and garden spaces to support a new building that will house the school. As a second year teacher, there are a lot of agricultural based projects in the planning phase. This year, Biology students propagated plants and Ecology students presented to administrators about how we can design with Ecology in mind in our future building. Students interviewed farmers, scientists, apiarists, non-profits, etc. involved in sustainable agriculture design to inform the landscape of where NCCES is moving next school year. After the move, students will work to make some of those recommendations a reality. Later this year, in support of engineering students who built window box gardens, Biology students will be growing vegetable seedlings for residents of a low-income apartment complex in Fitchburg. In the past, Anna worked with garden initiatives including Keene Community Garden Connections (Keene, NH) to help organizations plan, build, grow, and eat from raised bed gardens and as an AmeriCorps member on Cow Island (Portland, ME) through the non-profit Ripple effect, where she worked with high school students growing vegetables and caring for chickens. Congratulations, Anna! Dairy- Based Workshops, Lessons and Mini-Grants Thanks to a grant from the Massachusetts Dairy Promotion Board, once again this year MAC is offering four $250 dairy-based Mini Grants to teachers who would like to develop a dairy lessons for their students. As part of the final reporting for these mini-grants teachers will submit the lesson to MAC to be published on our website. For more information on these mini-grants, send a e-mail to MAC at [email protected]. Who Grew My Soup Book Who Grew My Soup Massachusetts Agriculture in the Classroom is happy to annouce that through a special printing by National Agriculture in the Classroom we will be selling Who Grew My Soup by Tom Darbyshire . Who Grew My Soup? tells the story of young Phineas Quinn and his questions about the vegetable soup his mom serves for lunch. Phin declares he won’t slurp a single spoonful until he knows the answer to such questions as Who grew these carrots? Who grew these tomatoes? This entertaining and educational childrens book is currently out of print but MAC is selling a soft cover version of the book for you to enjoy in your classroom or library. We are selling them for $15 with $3 for shipping and handling. In Massachusetts, we are using the sale of the books as fundraiser for our programs. This is a great way to support MAC but also to add a useful resource to your classroom or school library. To purchase a copy of the book, email us to let us know the quantity of your order and we will send you an invoice or you can make your purchase using our online form. MAKE A DONATION TO MAC NOW! Celebrate our 30 years of providing agricltural resources to teachers by helping us continue our mission with a donation. MAC is a small, private 501 c(3) non-profit organization that has been working since 1983 to support agricultural education efforts in classroom and school gardens across the state. We do this by providing educators with agricultural educational resources and technical information; professional development workshops and conferences, mini-grants, school gardening resources and so much more. All programs are supported by donations and grants. MAC receives no direct state or federal funds other than that we raise through grants. If you like what we do, we hope that you will make a contribution today to support our educational programs. Your tax deductible
Posted on: Sat, 10 May 2014 12:12:00 +0000
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