Learning About Agriculture Through Gaming

 Learning About Agriculture Through Gaming. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

Teachers and parents have used games to enhance learning experiences for years. Now an online game to be released next week will help teach kids about agriculture. The American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture will release its enhanced version of “My American Farm,” an interactive online educational program, at the American Farm Bureau’s annual meeting.  Curtis Miller, the foundation’s director of education, talks about the new gaming platform.

MILLER: One of the main things we tried to do was not only provide these games, which teach subject matter with agricultural themes, but also provide educator resources and ways to search the site so the educators can find those resources easily by subject matter, agricultural themes and topics. We also have fun family activities which are set up for the home and for things to do when kids come home from school and they have that time on the computer. These are activities that they can do after playing the game or in addition to it.

Miller is hoping the new game, which is geared to third through fifth grade students, will make a big splash among attendees at AFBF’s annual meeting when it is officially launched.

MILLER: During the American Farm Bureau annual meeting the “My American Farm” game will be available in the foundation booth. There will be seminars and short workshops on how to use the game not only in the classroom but at home or as an educator.

Thanks to sponsorship by Pioneer, a DuPont Business, “My American Farm” is available to everyone. 

MILLER: The great part about this game is that it is available online at www.MyAmericanFarm.org . It is completely free, all of the resources attached to it are free and all of the games are free.  So it’s a nice free educational resource for our ag literacy programs in the United States. 

He talks about a unique incentive of the “My American Farm” game to keep kids coming back for more.

MILLER: The downloadable “Passport to Sustainability” is a passport in which when children complete one of the 12 games they get a reward certificate and a piece of that reward certificate can be placed in the “Passport to Sustainability,” and when they collect all 12 they have a full passport 2:48

Miller talks about the foundation’s goal for “My American Farm.”

MILLER: Our overall goal for the game is through subject matter and through entertainment teach young people the connection between where their food is grown and where it is eaten.  It’s one of the goals that we’ve had from the beginning for this project and others and this just happens to do it in an online gaming platform.

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