Michigan Agriculture in the Classroom (MIAITC) is always seeking meaningful community partnerships that expand educational opportunities and advance our mission of improving agricultural literacy.
In 2023, Michigan State University’s Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) program reached out to partner with us in support of its summer programming. That connection has grown into a valuable collaboration, providing gifted learners with engaging, hands-on experiences that connect science, agriculture and the world around them.
For the past two years, MIAITC has had the opportunity to teach a five-day session consisting of 90-minute classes each day.
In July, MIAITC gave a group of incoming fifth-graders a chance to demonstrate their engineering and design skills while learning more about Michigan agriculture and its many career options. Students took up the challenge to create a tool that would allow Michigan blueberry growers the opportunity to harvest new, larger and hardier blueberry varieties that could not be harvested with current equipment.
After exploring and researching common harvesting tools, students worked through the steps of the engineering and design process to optimize their inventions.
Finally, students took part in a trade-show-style presentation in which they presented their tools to their peers and share the research and data to support their inventions. This session gave students the opportunity to engage with a wide range of career pathways in agriculture and showed them how big a role creativity and invention play in the process.
A great addition was having state Promotion & Education volunteers on hand each day to interact with students. Students gained first-hand knowledge of agricultural designs and tools that provide their farms with efficiency. State Promotion & Education members Joe Bryant, Kim Graham, Tami Shaw and Joyce Neyer volunteered their time to answer student questions and provide direct guidance as they developed their inventions.
What began as a single opportunity has grown into a meaningful partnership that introduces gifted students to the many ways agriculture influences their daily lives. Through engaging, inquiry-based activities, students explore topics such as renewable energy, food systems, natural resources, and agricultural careers while strengthening their science and problem-solving skills.
As this partnership continues to grow, MIAITC looks forward to inspiring even more students with relevant, hands-on learning experiences that build agricultural literacy and help cultivate the next generation of informed consumers, innovators, and agricultural leaders.
Michigan Agriculture in the Classroom is funded in part by the Michigan Foundation for Agriculture.
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