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Teacher tours help educators trace connections to agriculture

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Written by Jonathan Eisenthal

Generations now separate most schoolkids from any direct experience of farming — maybe their great-grandparents, or their great-great-grandparents farmed.

Still, one thing hasn’t changed: agriculture provides things we need and enjoy every day. But how do you help kids understand that connection?

Twenty-five teachers spent three days in June visiting a dozen incredibly different places in the Twin Cities metro area, all of which are pieces in the mosaic of Minnesota agriculture. In turn, those educators will teach thousands of students over the coming years, making the topic of agriculture exciting and relevant to them. This Summer Teacher Tour was produced by Sue Knott and Keri Sidle, the education specialists at Minnesota Agriculture in the Classroom (MAITC). MAITC is a public-private partnership between Minnesota Department of Agriculture and supporters like the Minnesota Corn Growers Association.

Join the Summer Teacher Tour for one day’s itinerary:

[More: Read past blog posts about Minnesota Ag in the Classroom]

From the farm to the grain terminal

The teachers arrived in the morning at the CHS grain loading facility on the Minnesota River in Savage. They were briefed by the director of the facility and then toured the giant grain storage bins and barges, which take loads of grain downriver, 23,000 tons at a time. But where does all that grain come from?

One possible source is Brian Thalmann’s farm in Plato, which is where the teachers went next.

They saw the fields of growing corn and soybeans and the GPS-synced planter that plants dozens of rows of corn seed into the ground at once, covering hundreds of acres in a day. Each seed eventually produces an ear of corn with approximately 600 to 800 kernels. Some of those kernels end up feeding animals at local Minnesota feedlots and dairies, but some could end up on those barges that ship out from Savage and ply the Mississippi River all the way to New Orleans. There, they might be loaded onto even bigger boats and head to distant shores to feed poultry, beef and pigs in countries around the world.

But these are not the only potential destinations for the bushels from Thalmann’s farm.

The teachers wrapped up the day at J. Carver Distillery where they spent a pleasant couple of hours for cocktails and dinner. J. Carver buys all the grain for its spirits from local farmers, including Thalmann.

“I really loved the connection that was made with Thalmann Seeds — the grain from their farm that was used at the distillery,” said Tiffany Kobbermann, a family and consumer sciences teacher in the Minnewaska area schools who also farms. “J. Carver’s ‘Brickyard’ (whisky) is only made with the Thalmann Seeds’ grain. Having been there at the Thalmann’s farm right before we went to the distillery, it was fun to see. I’m very familiar with agricultural production, but what was fun for me was to look around and see some of the other tour participants having a real ‘aha’ moment, and say to themselves, ‘Oh, this is how they make the whisky. They need grain from a farm. Yep, this what came from there. This is what we saw there, and now we are using it as an input for a whole other product.’ I love that it’s a marketing point for the distillery that they are trying to source their feedstock for their drinks within 30 or 40 miles. It’s a great marketing strategy and a great way to keep it local.”

Kobbermann’s restless energy and hands-on teaching style powered her to winning a 2022 Excellence in Teaching about Agriculture Award from the National Agriculture in the Classroom organization. Among other lessons, Kobbermann starts one unit by having her class make lemonade before tracing the sweetener to its source as crystal sugar made from sugar beets. She has the students dissect a sugar beet, and she has also developed a video segment by accompanying beet farmers as they harvest the crop and bring it to the plant where it is turned into sugar.

As Kobbermann observed, the day’s travels helped her fellow teachers connect the dots.

“Visiting the CHS elevator and the Thalmann farm was eye opening,” said Julio Fajardo, who teaches social studies at the Spanish immersion program of Plymouth Middle School. “Now, I realize that all those farmers are not just farmers. They should not be called farmers. They should be called super businesspeople, because not only do they prepare the soil, plant and harvest, but they also have to sell their products and travel internationally to promote their goods. I know this tour is just the tip of the iceberg of agriculture, and I am looking forward to keeping learning about it.”

Focus on geography

An emphasis of this tour was geography, Knott said. A grant from National Geographic Society provided the funds for meals, lodging and bus transportation and a stipend to pay the teachers for their time.

The three-day experience opened with a talk by David Lanegran, professor emeritus of geography at Macalester College. Lanegran is an expert on how Minnesota’s geography affected the development of the state’s agriculture industry. He offered many insights, especially by using maps.

A map of the state’s soils cuts a diagonal line from the northwest to the southeast of the state, showing the boundary of the hardwood forests and the prairie. That same boundary then dictated that most of the state’s cropland would develop in the flat grasslands of the southern and western parts of the state, which have richer soils, while the forested parts of Minnesota, much of them with steep, rocky hills, became devoted to raising animals and producing dairy products.

Waconia Middle School provided a base of operations for the tour, and two of its teachers, world geography teacher Michele Melius and media specialist Mandy Bellm, taught the group about creating a Geo-Inquiry classroom. It’s all about firing up the kids’ curiosity. In the end, the kids ask more questions than the teacher, and that’s a good thing. When the students follow their own curiosity, it makes for lasting lessons. Melius oversees the ‘edible classroom’ and the outdoor garden at Waconia Middle School, where students learn about plant biology while raising fruits and vegetables that are used in school’s lunch program. She partnered with MAITC’s Knott and Sidle to plan the three days of activities.

“In Minnesota Agriculture in the Classroom, our focus is to grow agricultural literacy,” Knott said. “Our definition of an agriculturally literate person is someone who understands and can communicate how agriculture affects their life every day. The goal is that the teacher tour participants will be strengthened in their agricultural literacy and then they will be able to pass that down and share it and grow agricultural literacy with their students. It’s not just a command of facts. It is valuing agriculture and how it impacts our lives every day.”

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