Agriculture Across All Curriculum Showcase slated in Harrisburg

Educators, administrators and parents are invited to the Agriculture Across All Curriculum Showcase, an event designed to illustrate how agriculture plays a part in every walk of life and applies to a wide variety of intellectual disciplines.

Ashlyn Ussery, extension agriculture and natural resources educator for the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture, will be on hand at the event, slated for May 12, at the Northeast Rice Research and Extension Center in Harrisburg.

Ussery described it as a “come and go” event during which attendees will have the opportunity to tour the center’s educational classroom, kitchen and greenhouse.

“I’ll be delivering a short presentation at 4:15 and again at 5:15 pm,” Ussery said. “But other than that, this is primarily a chance for teachers and parents to tour our facility and see what the NERREC is. I want folks to take a deeper look at our education program and see what kind of hands-on activities are available to them and their students, either as a field trip destination, or for me to come to their classroom as an educator to do a hands-on lesson about agriculture with them.”

Ussery said that a common misconception among educators is that agricultural subjects are best left within ag programs.

“Our main audience is teachers who aren’t in agriculture,” Ussery said. “We’re not excluding ag programs at all, but the science teacher, the math teacher, the career and technology teacher — those are the teachers we’re really wanting to reach out to, to connect with and reach their students.”

An activity Ussery uses to demonstrate the physical and mechanical properties at work in agriculture, for example, employs sandpaper to show how the outer hull is removed from rough rice grains to reveal brown rice — which still has a layer of bran — and finally white rice.

Ussery said the lessons and activities employed by the center align with Arkansas’ academic standards and curriculum guidelines.