Samantha Kline, an 8th-grade agriculture teacher at Clear Fork Middle School in Bellville, Ohio, recently attended the Feed the World 2-day Workshop. This eye-opening experience, designed for middle and high school science educators, aims to equip students with essential STEM skills for the future of food and energy security.
“The aha moment for me was a lesson specifically geared towards teaching about GMOs, where we introduced a gene to bacteria and got to see overnight how that would impact it,” Kline shared. “I look forward to implementing this in my classroom as well as getting students excited about biotechnology.”
The workshop, sponsored by Ohio Corn & Wheat, offered hands-on labs focusing on biotechnology, soil science, water quality, energy production, sustainable agricultural practices, and plant science. Participants also visited an ethanol plant to witness the corn-to-fuel conversion process firsthand.
Kline emphasized the importance of broadening students’ perspectives on agriculture: “For me, it’s really important to get students to break down that barrier of what agriculture is and that it’s far more than what they have seen in storybooks or just using tractors, but that the science is much more in-depth and much more advanced than what most have believed.”
Educators interested in connecting their students to the STEM naturally found in agriculture can access free, teacher-developed classroom materials on the Feed the World website. These resources cover topics such as soil science, water quality, and biotechnology, helping bring real-world agricultural science into the classroom.