While classrooms have moved into our kitchens for months now, the HungerU, a program platform of the Farm Journal Foundation, has been working to share resources and build relationships that keep issues important to modern agriculture in students’ agendas. By expanding beyond the traditional college-aged audience, the program is finding new ways to build partnerships and utilize online platforms to reach school children. In doing so, farmer investments are being maximized to open even more minds to the importance of modern agricultural tools, such as GMOs, pesticides and gene editing, in farmers’ struggle to feed a growing population.
HungerU was originally designed as an educational and advocacy platform designed to engage universities’ student populations. This fall marks the fourth year of NCGA’s partnership in the program.
To address the need for educational materials parents’ could easily use in their homes and lessons educators could share in the scramble to go virtual, the Farm Journal Foundation distributed letters to teachers, teacher associations and curriculum coordinators across all 50 states, offering access to three streams of online learning that they can use in their lesson planning and curriculum.
To view the curriculum, click here.
For a virtual tour of the Garden, click here.
These materials are largely centered on the Voice of the Farmer garden curriculum and the library of full-scale eLearning modules that underpin that content. By extending the Garden and its educational resources well beyond the National Mall, it has the potential to benefit thousands of students, parents and teachers during this challenging time.