Ag in the Classroom with Amy Hyde

Amy Hyde

Women In Ag

Ag in the Classroom With Amy Hyde

Here in the heart of Illinois, we are surrounded by agriculture. With the various crops and livestock we see all around us, it would be easy to assume that Logan County youth would be familiar with the industry. However, for most elementary-aged children, agriculture education has not been a part of their curriculum in the classroom, that is until Amy Hyde stepped into the picture.

Amy Hyde is the current 4-H Youth and Development Program Coordinator and the County Ag Literacy Coordinator with Ag in the Classroom, but her roots in agriculture go back for generations.

She grew up on a family farm in Macon County with her parents and two older sisters. She always enjoyed helping around the farm, took many trips to the implement store with her dad, and often walked beans with her sisters when they were not in school. Her dad’s family farm was started back in 1867, and her mom’s in 1851, which they still have in the family today and Amy hopes her grandchildren will want to continue. Growing up, Amy was always involved in 4-H, which she believes to have had an influence on where she is today. After high school, she went to work at the Clinton Power Station for 17 years before hearing about a Logan County Extension job. Amy had always loved working with children and had a desire to teach one day, so when a colleague reached out to her about a 4-H Community Worker position, she could not wait to get started.

In that position, she saw a need for agriculture education in the community, so one of her goals became to begin an Ag in the Classroom program. The USDA established Ag in the Classroom back in 1981 to implement agriculture education to schools’ existing curriculum to enhance ag literacy. Today, it has become a national program with representation in each state throughout K-12 classrooms.

“The introduction to agriculture is very important,” says Amy. “We take for granted how much we learn growing up on a farm, because so many kids have never been exposed to ag, which is unfortunate to see.”

Eventually in 2013, her hard work of advocating for ag education paid off and the Illinois Farm Bureau and Illinois Extension came together to implement the Ag in the Classroom program in Logan County.

Today, Amy visits 10 elementary schools in Logan county each month throughout the school year where she teaches about 1,000 students from kindergarten to sixth grade. She chooses a new ag topic each month to build her lesson plans around that range from crops and livestock to wool and cotton. Her students also love the seasonal topics such as Christmas trees, pumpkins, or animals at the fair.

After 19 years of teaching through this program, Amy is still shocked at what little knowledge today’s youth have about basic agricultural concepts. “I believe our whole community needs more ag education for different reasons,” says Amy. “When I go into schools, I notice students have very limited exposure to where their food comes from or about the corn and soybean fields surrounding Lincoln.”

Although it is disappointing to see, this only ignites her passion even more to reach as many children as she can to connect them to agriculture and build upon her lessons, so that they get the most out of her time in the classroom.

Over the years, she has noticed that the best way to engage her students is through fun, hands-on STEM activities as simple as watching seeds grow or with a fun twist such as making pumpkin catapults. No matter the topic, they are able to have fun while learning and building other skills, which is what truly matters to Amy. “I love to see their enthusiasm,” she says. “Through AITC, kids love the hands-on learning experiences and are proud of what they can teach others, which builds leadership skills.”

In addition, Amy hopes that her lessons help the students to connect agriculture to the real world and to see what vast opportunities are out there for them within the industry. “These students love science, and agriculture is a perfect example of how science can create advances in crop production and more effective farm practices to help produce more food.”

Over the past several years, Amy has added Teen Teachers to her Ag in the Classroom program to expand her reach in the community even more. This allows for high school age 4-H members create their own lesson plans and teach a few of her classes throughout the year. Not only does it build upon the 4-H members’ community service and communication skills, but also gives the children more people in agriculture to look up to and learn from. When Amy talks about her career within ag education, her passion for what she does is evident, and to see the children’s excitement on their faces when she walks into their classroom is priceless. It is the students that keep her going each day and wanting to continue enhancing the program for years to come. “Seeing these children excited to learn about ag and seeing that I am having an impact on them is the most rewarding part,” says Amy.

She recognizes the need for more educators in ag, and to those interested, offers one piece of advice: “Go for it; there are so many career opportunities in agriculture, and we need the next generation to get involved and make a difference.”

Teen Teachers milk a cow activity

Students making pumpkin catapults www.centralilag.com · Volume 9 Issue 1 30

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