The USDA’s National Ag Statistics Service and FFA are teaming up to develop new tools for classrooms to “help promote agricultural and statistical literacy among kindergarten through 12th-grade students.”
“By including these materials in the classroom curriculum, teachers can help students better understand statistics and their importance to the farming community, rural America and society as a whole,” said Dr. Cynthia Clark, NASS administrator. “These lesson plans contain relevant information to give students a realistic view of statistical processes used to track trends and changes in U.S. agricultural production, economics and demographics.”
The classroom-ready resources, which include lesson plans and supporting materials, are aligned with national curriculum standards for science, math and social studies. The materials use current Census of Agriculture data to teach a variety of concepts including discovering new trends in population subsets and evaluating diversity among farmers.
The materials are available online via the NASS website (http://www.nass.usda.gov/Education_and_Outreach/index.asp) and the FFA Learning Center (http://ffa.learn.com).