FFA students from 32 schools within eastern Kansas are gaining budgeting, grain marketing and farm business planning skills thanks to GrainBridge, a program that provides web-based farm risk management curriculum tools at no cost to educators and students in agricultural classrooms as part of Frontier Farm Credit’s funding support.
Through the instruction of 20 interactive modules, students walk away with a better understanding of how to manage risk from pre-planning to point of sale using live market data. They also practice managing virtual farms and ranches by stimulating market events and scenarios that affect profitability.
"Teachers love the real-world applications of the program and its relevance to what is happening in production ag today."
– Jordyn Bader
“We often hear from teachers that they love the real-world applications of the program and its relevance to what is happening in production ag today,” says GrainBridge education and outreach coordinator Jordyn Bader.
According to Bader, the experiential learning tool is making an impact outside of the classroom, too.
“We have a number of students who are transitioning what they are learning in the classroom and applying it to their family’s operation or even their own production-based project as part of their supervised agricultural experience,” says Bader.
Making Connections Between Pollinators and Production Agriculture
Another educational outreach program organized by Operation WildLife, is working to expose elementary students to the important environmental role honeybees play as pollinators.
Students in participating schools will be able to see honeybees at work in a portable observation hive while learning about their social structure, the special challenges they face and how they benefit food and agriculture systems.
“As part of our mission to provide wildlife education, we decided to branch out and do outreach education in the classroom emphasizing the primary role honeybees play as pollinators,” says Diane Johnson, executive director of Operation WildLife.
“Education starts early, and if we can make children aware of honeybees up close and personal, the more they will understand their value.”
