Connecting Urban Students To Ag

Connecting Urban Students To Ag. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture.

Nearly 4,000 students - ages ranging from grade school to high school - attended the YMCA Thingamajig Convention last week in Maryland. American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture Executive Director Julie Tesch says the event focused on STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. Tesch explains the importance of connecting with urban students.

TESCH: A lot of these kids have never maybe seen a plant grown or they've never seen an animal, so the more that we can make agriculture, and especially where their food grows, relatable to them and get them excited about it, that will be better. And so the first step is doing these non-formal things, then hopefully we can get into the schools and do more Ag in the Classroom training.

For the event, Tesch says the Foundation had an interactive, make-and-take activity at its booth.

TESCH: We also had our My American Farm kiosks, so kids could play one of the games, or a few of the games if they liked, and learn about My American Farm. So then we handed out information on that as well so they could use that at home.

The Foundation is looking for more opportunities to connect urban communities to agriculture.

TESCH: If people have ideas on these urban areas on things that we could be doing, or even in your states, I encourage people to really think outside the box on what we could be doing because there are so many ways that we can reach students.

That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.