*make sure to click "View entire message" to get access to the full newsletter!* |
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Summer Teacher's Institute 2023 |
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Have you ever been to the other Maine? Aroostook County is Maine's northernmost county bordered to the east, west and north by Canada, and is larger than Connecticut and Rhode Island combined! 10% of the area in Aroostook County is cultivated farmland. It's major crops are broccoli, potatoes, hay, and small grain rotation crops, and Aroostook County provides 30% of the state's agriculture sales!
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Register Today for the Maine Agriculture in the Classroom Summer Teacher's Institute!
Join us this year at the University of Maine at Presque Isle from July 31 - August 4, 2023. Come learn about the great Food and Agriculture programs, tour Agriculture research facilities, farms, processors, and receive meaningful classroom instruction in Aroostook County! 28 Contact Hours or 2.8 CEU’s. Scholarships are available! Space is limited so register early! Learn more on our website!
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Read ME Agriculture 2023 Evaluation |
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"For the Love of Bees"
Artist: Maryann Mullett
To view her incredible collection, many with an Ag focus, visit her website here.
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A huge THANK YOU to everyone who participated in Maine Agriculture in the Classroom's 2023 Read ME Agriculture program! This year's book was "Honeybee: The Busy Life of Apis Mellifera" by Candace Fleming with the incredible artwork of Eric Rohmann.
If you participated, please complete this evaluation to help us continue to improve our program and ensure that it returns next year! Your feedback will be confidential to MAITC Staff. Thank you!
In case you missed it: For teachers and volunteers that are participating, check out this Resource Guide we put together. It's filled with links to organizations, information, activities, kits, lessons, (and much more!) to accompany the Honeybee book.
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Maine School Garden Network Survey |
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Maine School Garden Network is conducting a new Network Survey and would love to hear from you about your current school garden project and how they can help you grow and nurture it. Please take a few minutes to answer these questions to help them plan ways to meet your needs. Results will be published later in the year.
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Topics include a discussion on building community in natural spaces, rainwater harvesting, pollinator gardens, growing in raised beds, soil health, and more! All guests will go home with door prizes of: Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens day pass, ChopChop Magazines, Proven Winners booklets and seeds and Edible Maine magazines! The day will culminate with an AWESOME Raffle to benefit MSGN!
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Forests of Maine Teachers' Tours |
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One of the Maine TREE’s most popular programs, Forests of Maine Teachers’ Tours, is over twenty years old. Each year, the four-day tours focus on the growth, harvest, and processing of wood products in Maine. The Forests of Maine Teachers' Tours prepare participants to return to the classroom with stimulating approaches to share knowledge about the forest with students, colleagues, and communities. Throughout the four-day tour, participants engage in Project Learning Tree activities, meet professionals who work in the Maine woods, and develop ideas on how to bring the forest to the classroom or the classroom to the forest. Earn up to 30 contact hours toward your continuing education requirement for your teacher certification renewal! Learn more and apply here.
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Maine Nutrition Council Events & Opportunities |
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The Lifelong Learner Award
The intent of this award is to foster growth and development of Maine Nutrition Council members within their established nutrition, food or health career.
This is an award of up to $1000 to a current Maine Nutrition Council member to participate in a nutrition and/or food related professional development program (ex. conference, course). Apply by April 28th. More info here.
The Katherine O. Musgrave Award
The purpose of the Katherine O. Musgrave Public Service Award is to recognize an individual, organization or collaborations for outstanding work in nutrition policy, education, or research. Nominate someone or apply by April 28th. More info here.
Scholarships
The Maine Nutrition Council annually awards $500 scholarships to eligible college students. Applications are due April 28th. For more information on eligibility & applications, click here.
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Spring Event (VIRTUAL):
Thursday, April 6, 2023 | 2-4pm
Learn about fiber and prebiotics for gut health with medical nutrition therapist, FODMAP expert, and author, Patsy Catsos
Annual Conference (in-person):
Friday, June 23, 2023 | 8am - 4pm
Falmouth Elementary School
"Eating for the Earth"
Themes including: Farm to institution, holistic and herbal medicine, sustainable agriculture, and the benefits of eating locally and in season.
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Harvest of the Month - April is Maine Dairy! |
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Click here for the great Harvest of the Month (HOM) materials - posters, fact sheets, recipes, social media promo, and more!
All of our HOM Resource Pages can be found on our Teach ME site under "Teaching Units"
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Teacher Resources Section |
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The Soil We Grow In. Grades K-2. Students determine the importance and complexity of the Earth’s soil.
Caring For the Land. Grades 3-5. Students explain why people have different opinions regarding soil management and identify cause and effect relationships relating to agriculture and the environment.
Eat Plants, Save the Planet. Grades K-6. Lesson 8 from the Healthy Kids Happy Planet Curriculum, recommended for April in recognition of Earth Day. Bean & Cultural Connection: BLACK Bean & Brazil-Amazon Rainforest (Earth Month). Nutrition Focus: Eating for the Planet, Water is Life! Fun and engaging worksheets with recipes too!
Farmers Celebrate the Earth Every Day. Grades 6-8. From Fuel Up to Play 60: In this unit, students learn about how dairy farmers harness the elements and work in harmony with nature: Earth (land), Air (breath), Water (hydration) and Biosphere (ecosystem), and about seasonality in farming, including dairy farmers’ work with the land to ensure they have enough feed for their cows. Students will discover how the elements are connected to each other, to animals, to farm foods, and to their bodies.
Journey 2050. Grades 6-12. Journey 2050 is a program helping students engage in world food sustainability at a local and global scale. The program contains seven lessons which are aligned to education standards for both 6-8th grade and 9-12th grade.
Earth's Land and Soil Resources. Grades 9-12. Students discover that topsoil is a nonrenewable resource and use an apple to represent how Earth’s land resources are used. Through critical thinking, students study agricultural land use and consider the sustainability of current land use practices including the use of land to feed and graze livestock animals.
Looking for more? Explore the Agricultural Literacy Curriculum Matrix HERE
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Conservation Word Scramble. Check out this learning activity. Farmers care for the land. Use the clues to help unscramble each word!
Keys to Stewardship. Online game from My American Farm. In this game solve a series of tangrams and discover the cool way farmers and ranchers are stewards of our natural resources and wildlife.
Pollinator Garden E-Comic. Pollinators are very important for a healthy Earth! Learn all about pollinators and what they do in this eComic!
Garden Activities for Earth Day. From Kidsgardening.org. Every day should be Earth Day! How can we expect the next generation to care for our environment if they have little interaction with the natural world we are asking them to protect? These activities highlight some garden-related fun that helps kids get motivated to protect our planet.
Four Ways Farmers Steward the Land. These are just a few examples of how farmers steward the land by using soil conservation practices. Farmers work hard to keep the land and soil healthy now and for future generations. They know their actions affect the environment. No one is closer to the earth than farmers and it is important to them to care for the land, water and natural resources.
Purple Plow Pollinator Challenge. Challenge Question: What can we do to sustain or improve pollinator well-being? Through this challenge, students will become more aware of the important role pollinators play in our daily lives and how to help protect the various populations. After thoughtful research, students will design, test and demonstrate a solution that will sustain or improve pollinator well-being. Entries are due May 1st!
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More funding opportunities are listed from some of our friends:
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ReTreeUS plants orchards in schools and provides educational programs that empower people to be healthy environmental stewards.
Fuel Up to Play 60 offers educators a wide array of resources they can use to help students make sustainable changes in their school environment.
Agroworld is an agricultural science e-zine developed for the secondary educator.
KidsGardening has ideas about plants and gardens, teacher resources, and grant opportunities.
The Chop Chop magazine and website has easy and healthy recipes.
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This document is a compilation of agriculture related resources to be used in virtual and remote learning.
Pictures, videos, and words are hyperlinked throughout the document.
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Funding from this plate has impacted up to 200,000 students annually with lessons, materials, volunteers and teacher training. Annually up to $60K is distributed in grants to schools, FFA, 4-H and other Non-profit programs for Ag education initiatives by the Maine Agriculture in the Classroom Council.
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Donate today to The Maine Agriculture in the Classroom Association
The Non-profit, completely volunteer, portion of MAITC. These funds are used directly to support teacher scholarships and recognition, and support volunteer participation for Ag education programs. Your donation is completely tax deductible and you can make a one-time donation or a recurring monthly donation which will support the mission, "to promote the understanding of agriculture and natural resources among students, educators, and the general public." If you have any other questions or would like to join this group please contact the chairman, Maryjane Stafford. Donate Here.
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Our Mission Statement
"To promote the understanding of agriculture and natural resources among students, educators, and the general public"
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28 State House Station
Augusta, ME 04333
(207)287-5522
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