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Agricultural News


Noble Academy Gears Up to Educate Educators to Bring Agricultural Science Into the Classroom

Tue, 23 Jul 2013 12:29:07 CDT

Noble Academy Gears Up to Educate Educators to Bring Agricultural Science Into the Classroom
With students and teachers heading back to the classroom in just a few weeks, Dr. Frank Hardin is gearing up as well. Hardin is the educational outreach manager at the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation in Ardmore. It is his mission and his passion to bring agricultural science education to as many students as possible. One of the ways he is doing that is through a concept called the Noble Academy.


Hardin was a featured speaker at the Vision 2020 Conference for Oklahoma educators earlier this month. Hardin talked about his work with Radio Oklahoma Network Farm Director Ron Hays. (You can hear the full interview by clicking on the LISTEN BAR at the bottom of this story.)


Hardin said the idea for the Noble Academy started with simple observations on the Noble Foundation campus in Ardmore.


"It began because we host tours at the Noble Foundation, for adults and for youth. And the past several years, as we've brought more and more youth on the campus, we began to realize there is a huge disconnect between today's youth and agriculture. So much so that we hear things like, 'I would never eat beef from a cow, I'd only eat beef from Walmart.' And, 'Do strawberries really come from plants?'


"So, we realize this disconnect and we also realize that today's youth are future leaders and policymakers and educators. And if this disconnect continues, agriculture could suffer some severe consequences in the future later on down the road. So, the Noble Academy began to take science and ag programs into the classroom.


"We work with fifth graders all the way up to 12th graders. And, right now, because we don't want to start too big too soon, we are focusing on middle grades. And we are doing that for two reasons: 1) because that is where they have a tendency to lose their love for science; there's just not a lot of hands-on science activities that they can do in the classroom.


"In fact, just the other day, we heard a young lady say, 'This is the coolest thing I've done in school yet. All we do in science class is worksheets.'


"So, we were in there. It was hands-on activity. The strawberry DNA extraction, they loved it.


"So, we realize that there's not a lot of science in the middle grades and, also, for any student who's interested in food, feed and fiber or agriculture, that's where to spark their interest-in the middle grades. So we've started in the middle grades and we're taking science and agricultural programs into the classroom to do three things: 1) we want to educate these youth about the importance of agriculture in society. We want to break the mold that agriculture is just farmers and ranchers, that there are other careers out there besides farming and ranching that are also important to agriculture as well. They can be computer scientists. They can be photographers. They can be graphic designers. All of these professions are involved in agriculture or can be involved with agriculture. So it's not farmers and ranchers, but a wide variety of careers that they can pursue.


"And, also, to convey the need for science to advance agriculture. We're going to have to feed 9 ½ billion people in the next 40 years. It has taken us until now to learn how to feed seven billion people. In 40 years, 2 ½ billion more. And we have to do this with less agricultural inputs-less water and less land. In order to do that, science is going to play a big role."


Hardin said they are conducting the academy at four pilot schools Carter County with the idea of teaching the teachers how to conduct these programs on their own. Once they have done that, Hardin said, they will be ready to expand the program further.



   



   


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