Designing a food science curriculum to build agricultural literacy in high school students

henever people ask me what I do for a living, I prepare myself to provide an answer to two very different personnel: the first is someone who knows exactly what an agricultural educator is, which is always the dream response. The later, more likely scenario, is that they have no idea what that is or why I “teach farming to kids”. These individuals I come across are no different than the students in high school that I teach: a small percentage know what my agricultural classes are about and why they are important, but the majority thinks we are “hicks that drive big trucks and wear boots and shovel manure for fun”. Though it is always exciting to teach those who share a passion, knowledge, and love of agriculture like myself, my biggest goal in becoming an agriculture teacher was to teach that 90%, who don’t fully understand, how agriculture impacts them each and every day. To see them mold their narrow view into one that encompass all that agriculture is, and know more about it than the facts they find on social media sites, is very fulfilling to me. Most of my students don’t even realize how much of their daily lives depend on agriculture, and if they are aware, they cannot fully or confidently answer the question, “Where do you see agriculture in your daily life?” This is a question I strive to have my students be able to answer by the time they leave my classroom.