FARM Crates Provide Ag-Related Lessons for Michigan Students
In partnership with: Michigan Department of Agriculture & Rural Development
When Michigan Schools moved to virtual learning in 2020, all in-person Agriculture in the Classroom learning paused as well. Schools couldn’t host Project Rural Education Days or the mobile FARM (Food, Agriculture & Resources in Motion) Science labs. To fill the void, Michigan Farm Bureau (MFB) staffers created FARM Crates for kindergarten through fifth-grade students. Each month’s themed crate features a food or ag-related book, lesson plans, teacher guides, hands-on student activities and a video featuring a Michigan farmer. For example, in the September 2021 crates, students learned various math concepts, including patterning, identifying greater than, less than or equal to, and solved word problems while learning about the different varieties of apples grown in Michigan.
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“All of these Michigan farmer videos have been filmed specifically for the FARM Crate lesson,” says Amelia Miller, MFB promotion and education programs specialist. “These videos show the diversity of Michigan agriculture, from farmers’ ages to their locations to the variety of foods they grow.”
Other lesson themes included pumpkins, turkeys, Christmas trees, eggs and raising chickens, and spring seedlings. “We know most families in Michigan are far removed from agriculture, so by giving students accurate information about agriculture, we help them make lasting connections in an age-appropriate way,” Miller says.
Delivered through a subscription-based program, FARM Crates cost $35 per month. Miller says on average, the program provides 2,000 crates per semester to more than 250 schools in 50 counties. She says county Farm Bureaus ordered most of the FARM Crates to give to schools in their communities.
“We would not have reached the schools we did without the network of our county Farm Bureaus,” Miller says.
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FARM Crates has proved so successful MFB plans to continue it. “We are so excited with the uptake of this program, including feedback from teachers,” Miller says. Educators appreciated the digital components, particularly as they were teaching remotely, but most importantly, teachers felt supported by their community and excited to build on existing relationships with county Farm Bureaus and local farmers, Miller says.
FARM Crates is a program of Michigan Agriculture in the Classroom, which is housed within MFB and supported by the Michigan Foundation for Agriculture.
“FARM Crates are part of our efforts to help students apply their learning to decision making when it comes to knowing how food, fuel and fiber are grown and raised in Michigan,” Miller says.