EDWARDSVILLE – Edwardsville CUSD 7 has received a $10,000 grant from America’s Farmers Grow Rural Education, sponsored by the Monsanto Fund. The district will use the money to purchase new tablets for science and agriculture courses at the high school. Wi-Fi will be installed in the existing greenhouse so the tablets can be used there as well.
Students will use the tablets to participate in propagation labs, fertilizer and pH trials and to gain an understanding of integrated pest management. According to Beth Jacobs, instructional technology and special education coordinator for the district, the new technology will improve the functionality of the greenhouse. It will also provide students with more efficient and advanced ways of collecting and recording data.
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“Technology is an ever-growing and ever-changing field, and District 7 encourages the use of technology across all grade levels and subjects,” said Jacobs. “When notified that we had been nominated for this grant, we turned to our agriculture and science department to see what they could do to take technology to the next level in their classrooms.”
In 2012, District 7 began an initiative called Technology in the 21st Century Classroom, which offers ongoing staff development opportunities to assist teachers on incorporating innovative technology into their daily instruction. The new technology available through the Grow Rural Education grant will support this initiative.
Farmers who nominated the school district and representatives from the school and the Monsanto Fund attended a check presentation to celebrate the grant during a Board of Education meeting on Sept. 28.
This year the school district also received an educational starter kit from Monsanto Company to help establish a pollinator garden, which will give students first-hand knowledge of the critical role habitat plays in providing bees and butterflies with food, shelter and places to lay eggs.
Since 2011, Grow Rural Education has awarded more than $9 million to help keep rural public school districts growing. The program works with farmers to nominate public school districts to compete for math and science grants of $10,000 or $25,000. Grant applications are reviewed and finalists selected by a panel of teachers. Winning applications are chosen by an advisory council comprised of farmers from across the U.S.
Visit www.GrowRuralEducation.com to see the full list of winners for this year. A sister program, America’s Farmers Grow Communities, is currently enrolling farmers for 2016. To sign up, visit www.GrowCommunities.com before Nov. 30.
These programs are part of the America’s Farmers initiative. The America’s Farmers campaign and programs have advocated on behalf of farmers and their efforts to meet society’s needs through agriculture. Today, consumers are more interested than ever in agriculture and how food is grown. Farmers and others in the industry are joining in on the conversation to help raise awareness about agriculture and share their stories with their communities. Learn more at cfiengage.org.
