News Progress

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Ag in the Classroom
With Ag in the Classroom back for a new season, September’s lesson was on apples. Stephanie Naylor visited Sullivan and Okaw Valley Elementary schools. The Kindergarten and First graders tasted three popular types of apples and filled out a worksheet picking their favorite and completing a craft. The second, third and fourth graders learned several apple facts and completed an experiment creating an apple volcano. Naylor will meet with students one time a month to discuss a variety of Agriculture related topics.

•October 16, 2019•
By Ellen Ferrera
for the News Progress

Stephanie Naylor has, for several years, been the Moultrie County instructor for the Ag in the Classroom program.
In that capacity she visits every K-3 class in Moultrie County once a month for 20 minutes and, in a year, teaches over 6,000 students about the wonders of agriculture through a variety of interactive programs. But such agricultural experiences were not always available.
Throughout much of our history, agriculture and education have been closely related. Old school books are full of agricultural reference because farming was part of nearly every child’s life prior to 1920.
From 1920-1950 farm populations shrank, agricultural emphasis decreased in books and agricultural education became more of an occupational specialty or a trade school course. Ag classes had virtually disappeared from most curriculums.
In 1981 the U. S. Department of Agriculture invited educators and representatives of agricultural organizations to discuss agricultural literacy and to form a task force to help bring agriculture back into the classroom. That same year the national program – Ag in the Classroom – was established and, as result, each state now addresses agricultural education in ways best suited to its own needs. Read More

•October 2, 2019•
By Cheri Burcham
for the News Progress

Have you noticed more butterflies lately? Especially monarch butterflies? That is because it is the monarch migration season and these black and orange beauties are heading down to Mexico!
The Monarch – which is our state butterfly – is the only butterfly that I am aware of that makes this miraculous journey each year.
It ends and begins in Mexico. Monarch butterflies overwinter in areas of the central Mexican mountains where they semi-hibernate until it is warm enough to travel back north. In the spring, they start making their way north through the U.S., reaching as far as Canada.
However the butterfly that makes it all the way north is not the exact same one that left Mexico – it will be the great grandchild of that one!
As the butterfly heads north, it will stop along the way and lay eggs and then die. Those eggs are deposited only on milkweed plants and the caterpillars (larvae) that emerge will eat the milkweed until they grow large enough to pupate or develop into a chrysalis (cocoon).
They will take about 10 days inside that chrysalis to develop into a butterfly and then emerge – and continue the journey north. This continues for four generations and then what I call the “supers” emerge and that last generation will be the ones that make a 2500 mile journey back to Mexico. Those are the ones you are seeing now. Isn’t it amazing that they know exactly where to go but have never been there before? Read More