Litchfield, IL
Grade Levels: 6th
Teacher: Chris Baugher
At the Litchfield Middle School, the Dudley Smith grant is being used to educate the students in Mr. Chris Baugher’s 6th-grade science class about the industry that surrounds them….FARMING. Living in the area his whole life and marrying into a family of farmers, Mr. Baugher felt that his students should know how important farming is to this area and to the environment as a whole. He wanted to share his interest in farming with his students. Since Litchfield is settled in an area surrounded by farms, he felt that they should become aware of these things around them.
Using the grant, Mr. Baugher presented his class with a project. It was titled “Farming.” At the start of the project, the students were given a list of the different types of farming, renewable resources, crops and animals and a miscellaneous category that addressed Carbon Sequestration. From these topics, the kids were given an even more broken-down list of detailed topics within these few main topics. The students were instructed to pick one specific topic in all of the four categories (farming techniques, renewable resources, crops/animals, miscellaneous.) In the miscellaneous category, there was only one topic which was a requirement for all students, Carbon Sequestration. Carbon Sequestration is what inspired Mr. Baugher to apply for this grant and to introduce his students to these areas of study. Once the students had done all of the research on their particular areas of interest, they were required to set up a display board of the knowledge that they have learned and to help teach other kids about the area that they had chosen.
Thanks to the Dudly Smith Grant, Mr. Baugher’s students were able to not only get the knowledge that they gathered on their own, but he was also able to provide them with Agrilearning kits, posters and videos on various areas of farming. In addition, Mr. Baugher was able to purchase a digital camera that was used to photograph the students work and also allow him to go out and about in the community and photograph types of farming and crops and bring this in to display to his students, perhaps sparking an interest in them to do the same.