5th and 6th Grade Educators, as you’re paging through your AgMags this year, what if your students could have a customized, first-hand experience with what they are reading in the magazine? Meet Farm Camp Minnesota, a program that bridges the classroom to the farm to create an immersive 3 day experience to go deeper into a topic or industry within Minnesota agriculture!
Farm Camp is a new program within the Minnesota Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation. This program is for educators of students in grades 5-12. Due to the incredible passion and support from donors, this program’s resources and staff support are free for you to utilize!
The best part of this new program is it is completely customizable to your classroom! Farm Camp’s Program Director works with you, the educator, to page through your curriculum to find a unit that links to an AgMag topic and/or an agricultural tour. Farm Camp experiences provide students with a fun, interactive deep dive into an agricultural industry. This allows them to connect with the world around them while they meet your curriculum’s standards at the same time!
The 3 Parts of Farm Camps
- In-classroom learning to grow student’s baseline knowledge
- Interactive tour (in-person or virtual)
- Agricultural Careers Lesson
How Does the Process Work?
Educators connect with our Program Director to begin brainstorming about how to make an agriculture tour connect with your current curriculum. Here are some ideas for Farm Camps to do with your classroom:
- Visit an strawberry farm
- Take a virtual tour of a Minnesota shrimp farm
- Ride along virtually during sugar beet planting
Once a topic has been generated, the Program Director finds you an AgHost that will provide a tour (in-person or virtually). The three parties then work together to select the type of topics that should be covered during the tour. The three aspects of Farm Camps always top of mind include:
- making sure they are age appropriate
- build on the lessons taught in the classroom
- are meaningful to the students and their lives
The Program Director lines up logistics and follows up with all the parties to ensure clear communication allowing you to stay focused on your classroom and its content. Prior to your tour, Farm Camp resources are provided to you to select a lesson plan that fits your classroom and curriculum. The student experience begins once all the pieces are in place.
- Survey
- In-classroom lesson
- Interactive Tour
- Agricultural Career Lesson
- Post-survey
Get Started with Farm Camp Minnesota Today!
Get started today by reaching out to our Program Director to begin planning a Farm Camp that will give your students an experience to remember and connect them with real-world agriculture all around them. Thank you for your work in increasing agricultural literacy and supporting the mission of the Minnesota Ag in the Classroom Foundation: where agriculture is valued by all.