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FLP Educator Wins National Award

As Agriculture Advocate of the Year 

Vigesaa has served on the FLP Steering Committee since 1992, currently serves as the Secretary, and has been a part of the national development team that created and now updates the 55 lessons of FLP's Resources for Learning.  She is the education coordinator for the Foster County Soil Conservation District in Carrington, North Dakota. Vigesaa is the first recipient of the award, which was given in June at the National AITC  Conference in Baltimore. The Ag Advocate Award recognizes an individual who gives freely of his or her time to promote agricultural literacy and uses creative approaches to teach students about the importance of agriculture.    

Jill Vigesaa Receives National AITC Award (AITC photo credit)

"Jill's work and efforts are a credit to Project Food, Land & People and a huge benefit to the teachers and students in her state who have advanced their knowledge of ag education and conservation because of her," FLP Chair Betty Wolanyk said.  "Her creative initiatives and tireless efforts should be recognized and applauded."

             A North Dakota farm girl devoted to land conservation and agriculture education,

Vigesaa has developed multiple programs and events in her state to increase ag and environmental literacy.  Her series of educational programs titled "The Regional Environmental Education Series" teaches students in kindergarten through sixth grade about the early pioneers, natural resources, farming practices, conservation, and others topics.  After 20 years, these statewide lyceum-style programs now reach about 30,000 students a year through 450 programs. 

During the 1980s, Vigesaa developed the first day-long field experience for North Dakota students using stations to teach students about the state's soils, trees, rangeland, water, and crops.  Also initiated by Vigesaa,  another program Eco-Ed, uses farmers to present their seed crops to students.  And yet another program of her initiative organized individuals from USDA, the university extension, farm service agency, farm credit agencies, bands, and the local chamber of commerce to hold the state's first Women's Ag Day.

"I just love the excitement as students stick their arm in a bucket of flax seed, chew on a kernel of wheat, marvel at the size of the tiny canola seeds, and come wide eyed when they see my sampling of food they would not have if it were not for our North Dakota farmers," Vigesaa said.  "They expect to see bread and pasta, but not a commercial product like Twizzlers." 

She explains that although she and her husband Claire were both raised on very rural county farms, her interest to provide agricultural education opportunities for students started when she visited a local elementary school years ago and realized that only three students in the class actually lived on a farm. "Since life took us to the city, at first, it was my own children that I initially wanted to share a love for the land and then I realized that all children should have a connection to the land and where their food comes from." 

Today, Vigessa serves as a facilitator for teacher workshops for both FLP and the Ag In the Classroom program, providing hands-on lessons such as creating a journal with paints from soil, creating stream tables to show connections between the environment and agriculture, and exploring the links between cultures and agriculture.  As a result, since 1998, more than 300 teachers and 3,000 students a year have enjoyed agriculture related lessons about conservation, economics, food safety, nutrition, global trade, and people of the world.  In her various roles and combining her professional initiatives with her personal enthusiasm for the subjects,  the mother of three children - one married, one in college, and one in high school - reviews grants about ag literacy, facilitates workshops, assists in matching state standards to materials, evaluates new topics for lessons and materials, and serves on various teams and committees. 

"Students can sit at their desks and literally cruise the world on the Internet learning vast amounts of knowledge, then order food to be delivered to their door, yet have no idea where that food comes from," she explained, "In my efforts to expand ag literacy in my state, I have been so thankful for FLP that provides such valuable resources to educators." 

Illustrating the intrinsic rewards that she receives from her education work, Vigesaa related the following story.  "One of my personal favorite moments came with a group of fourth graders. I brought a giant sunflower to the class and had the students guess how many seeds were in the head, and we talked about how many are in the average sunflower head.  Then, as they all touched and examined the little single seeds in the sunflower, I asked 'so how many seeds did the farmer have to plant to grow this giant head with more than 1,000 seeds?' They were all thinking about the question when a young boy's eyes got huge and he said, 'only one.' It was one of those 'Wow' moments for all the class. And, I loved it."

Always looking for new ways to initiate interest in agriculture education and an appreciation for the land, Vigesaa also is involved  in several other programs within her local area and state including Marketplace for Kids, The Living Classroom, MidWest KidFest, and the Go Green Expo. At the national level, she attends conferences for FLP, Ag In the Classroom, the National Association of Soil Conversation Districts, USDA Resource Conservation and Development, and others.

She has been recognized by EPA Region VIII with an "Outstanding Achievement in Environmental Education" award in 1994, the Northern Plains Regional Soil Conseration District as the "Outstanding Employee of the Year," and for Foster County Soil Conservation District for "Outstanding Personal Accomplishments, Dedication and Personal Service." Perhaps her greatest reward though comes when she is able to see other teachers recognized for bringing creative agriculture and conservation education to the classroom to the benefit of tomorrow's leaders.

Diverse Activities Highlight National Conference

      Tours of dairy and strawberry farms, presentations about education trends, world hunger, chocolate, and the No Child Left Inside movement, and state-coalition updates highlighted the 2010 national conference Project Food, Land & People (FLP) held in Durham, North Carolina.

     Turning 21, Onward to 2020 served as the theme for the FLP conference that brought together organization leaders and coordinators from 14 states.  The conference served as a renewal for the FLP mission, with the organization marking its 21^st year of existence this year while planning for what it needs to become in the future.  Conference attendees said the event was one of the most successful and productive held by FLP in recent years and again served to remind them of the importance of what FLP does for students and teachers as well as agriculture and the environment.            

FLP Friends and Strawberry Fields Forever

     "Our mission remains viable, our cause remains worthy, and our opportunities are abundant," FLP Chairperson Betty Wolanyk said about the conference. "Yet the challenges, obstacles and difficulties facing FLP and most educational, non-profit organizations loom around us. Our work may be often thankless, but we all realize the intrinsic reward in it and the greater cause for it."

       Wolanyk provided the opening keynote presentation covering trends and conditions in education and agriculture and also identifying the latest issues involving common core standards at the national level. A nationally recognized expert about misconceptions in agriculture and an agricultural education director, Wolanyk also provided a highly interesting presentation titled "How Dangerous Is My Food?" 

            Two tours coordinated and hosted by the Durham Soil and Water Conservation District received a lot of praise from conference participants.  The tours included a look at an extensive embryo program at King's Mill dairy farm and the conservation and agri-tourism efforts at the Page strawberry farm, both located in the Raleigh-Durham area. 

Owner Danny Page Gives A Tour

            "The owners and leaders of Kingsmill and Page farms deserve our greatest appreciation for providing our group first-hand accounts of the very best in agriculture-production practices," said Rod Wenzel, an FLP general manager and conference planner. "We appreciate the time that the Kingsmill leaders took to show us the details of their operations, which are among the most outstanding in North America, and we thank the owners of Page Farm for not only letting us tour their operation, but also providing us the fun of picking our own strawberries." Wenzel said that the tours, the group comraderie, and the barbecue in the field received the highest of praise from attendees on their evaluations.

            Wenzel provided the group a presentation focused on the FLP lesson "Feed the Need." His presentation "World Hunger: More Than a Billion Unserved" overviewed the current and unprecedented trends in world hunger today.  He also moderated a panel discussion "Friends, Partners and Strategies" that included discussion by Monica Pastor, Arizona AITC state coordinator; Chris Fleming, Tennessee AITC coordinator; Sheila Jones, North Carolina conservation specialist; and Terry Hughes, FLP steering committee member and a professor at SUNY/Cobleskill.

FLP's Doty Wenzel Coordinates Activity

            A State Spotlight session gave participants a close up look at two of FLP state coalitions.  Janet Toering, director of the "Connecting Learning and Living" extension program at Iowa State University, provided details about how FLP lessons and materials are used for massive outreach in Iowa.  FLP began its first state coalition in Iowa.  Also,

Scott Christmas of the Kentucky Farm Bureau Foundation, and Elizabeth McNulty of the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, provided a look at how FLP is used and received throughout the Bluegrass state and the transition work they have accomplished as co-leaders of that state's efforts.  The state spotlights on Iowa and Kentucky also were supported by individual state reports provided by the respective state coordinators.

            Also included on the agenda was a presentation about the national No Child Left Inside movement by Sue Quincy, FLP implementation and marketing chairperson, with the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, and a related overview of the environmental literacy planning in North Carolina by Sarah Yelton of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Education. Quincy also provided an overview of the film "Angry Moms" and presented information about the national concerns pertaining to the types of foods served in many school cafeterias. 

Museum Coordinator Albert Ervin and FLP's Sandee Brown discuss exhibit

            An exhibit and presentation about chocolate highlighted one of the luncheon presentations for the conference.  Albert Ervin, special exhibit coordinator with the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science, shared various parts of a chocolate exhibit and the FLP information that he uses to teach students and museum visitors about cocoa, its production, and the various types of chocolate. Also at that luncheon, Millie Langley, a resource conservationist and environmental educator in North Carolina, gave a first-hand account of the successes she has enjoyed while using FLP materials in her teaching efforts. 

            "We owe a debt of appreciation to Sandra Weitzel and her conservation district staff for serving as the local hosts and for arranging the tours, tailgate barbecue, and other presentations," said Doty Wenzel, an FLP general manager and the conference's coordinator. "Their efforts were pivotal to the successes we had both in having a first-class facility to hold the conference as well as to the enjoyment that each participant told us he or she had at this conference."  Weitzel is the North Carolina FLP state coordinator and a director with the Durham Soil and Water Conservation District. 

            Two of the conference's sessions focused on renewing FLP efforts and obtaining insights and directions from the various state coordinators.  A creative planning session titled "Pod To Pod, Planting Ideas to Grow FLP" included breakout sessions in materials development, implementation, marketing and fundraising, and strategic planning facilitated respectively by FLP leaders Sandee Brown, Vern Cardwell, Sue Quincy, and Rod Wenzel.  Updates on various FLP actions and events were presented by FLP Chief Financial Officer John Davis, FLP Steering Committee Chairperson Betty Wolanyk, FLP Implementation and Marketing Chairperson Sue Quincy, and FLP general managers Doty Wenzel and Rod Wenzel. 

FLP also recognized its history and looked toward its future with a "We're 21" celebration dinner held on the opening night of the conference.  "We've had larger conferences in our history and we've had more well attended ones, but perhaps we've never had a more important one," said Wolanyk.  In their follow-up evaluation, attendees rated the 2010 FLP national conference as outstanding and offered strong praise about the usefulness of the presentations, the quality of the arrangements and facility, and the conference's organization and activities.

The states represented at the conference included Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah.

                

     

            

Toering and Naeve combine FLP curricula with two other resource programs under an umbrella program titled Connecting Living and Learning.  At training workshops, all three curricula are demonstrated.  One of the favorite combination is the lesson Don't Use It All Up! from the FLP Resources for Learning, Second Edition used with a lesson titled Where We Live: Living with the Land's Water Quality from another program.  Another example of FLP usage within the umbrella program is the lesson Buzzy, Buzzy Bee being a favorite choice to expand the science and math components of other program lessons about insect and plant pollination and interdependence. Duane Toomsen, a retired environmental education director from the Iowa Department of Education and an original member of the FLP curriculum-design team, advised Toering and Naeve regarding the topics that other lessons should have to enhance FLP lessons.

About 12 years ago, Toering conducted a study with Iowa educators and program leaders regarding the status of agricultural, environmental, and food and nutrition programs in both school and after-school programs in Iowa.  A professional review committee evaluated the findings and concluded that ISU Extention could improve agricultural, environmental and nutritional literacy by developing in-school and after school curricula.  As a result, Toering turned to national programs including Project Food, Land & People and USDA's Agriculture in the Classroom to determine the gaps and needs for Iowa's educators and youth.  She also turned to Linda Naeve.

They have become a successful team. Toering uses her background in program management, education, youth development, food and nutrition, and agriculture to combine with Naeve's expertise in horticulture, gardening, agriculture, and program development. Naeve started the ISU Master Gardeners program and also led a children's gardening program.  Together, they set about creating and successfully implementing the Connecting Living and Learning program. 

"Partners are essential in the program and help us in the development, delivery and evaluation of our curricula," Toering said. "We work with more than two dozens partners. They are all familiar with Project Food, Land & People's Resources for Learning." 

During 2009, Toering and Naeve conducted training and network sessions with 421 pre-service teachers and 430 educators including teachers, naturalists, day care providers, Master Gardeners, conservationists, and Extension staff.  Among the participants, 60 to 85 percent had a significant increase in interest and confidence about teaching agriculture, natural resources, the environment, and food and nutrition because of the workshops.  The educators also reported that 84 to 90 percent of the students they taught made a new connection with nature, had a new understanding of their food, made comments reflecting their new knowledge, increased communication skills, and participated in a new activities.  Students expressed favorable responses to the activities and wanted to share them with members of their families.  Including military participants, the users of the Iowa program have been diversed. The closing portion of the Connecting Learning and Living (CCL) program session includes community capacity building, with participants sharing thoughts about and plans for using the lessons.

Toering points out that all of the CCL curricula including FLP lessons follow the land ethic of Aldo Leopold, a native Iowan, "When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect." Leopold grew up in Burlington, Iowa, is recognized as the father of ecology, and is author of the widely sold "A Sand County Almanac."

"We are thankful for support from organizations such as Food, Land & People for keeping their eyes on issues and policy matters that might impact our efforts," said Toering, "We need to understand that we are not competing against each other to improve literacy; instead we need to move together to see that it can happen in a significant way so that we can sustain and enjoy life on planet Earth."