RICHLAND COUNTY, Ohio – When a second-grade teacher in Richland County asked her class, “What is agriculture?” only a few students volunteered a reply. One hour later, after engaging with a hands-on literacy kit, every hand in the room shot up.

“To me, that was awesome,” Richland County Farm Bureau Organization Director Abra Dunn said. “Even the teacher praised us. She said, ‘I can’t keep these kids engaged for an hour like that.’ That’s pretty impressive. They had fun and enjoyed it... It was good feedback from the kids.”

The engaging lesson came from the Cultivating Minds Project, a joint effort led by Richland County Farm Bureau and the Richland Soil and Water Conservation District (RSWCD), initiated to bridge a gap in local agriculture education. Even in areas like north-central Ohio, surrounded by farmland, many school districts lack formal agricultural programs. This project provides teachers with the tools they need to integrate environmental and farming concepts into their curriculum.

Three environmental and agriculture literacy kits were provided to Richland County elementary schools and the Mansfield/Richland County Public Library. The kits feature a turnkey lesson plan for kindergarten through sixth grade, designed to teach students about natural resources, food and agriculture. The kits include children’s books, lessons, and items needed for an activity. A total of 75 kits were distributed throughout the county. Individuals, homeschoolers, homeschool groups, scout troops, 4-H clubs, and church groups were invited to check out the kits through the library.

Volunteers delivered several educational kits to local schools, tailored for different grade levels. For students in grades K-6, the Freddy the Fish program offers an interactive look at water quality. Participants follow Freddy’s journey downstream, witnessing the cumulative effects of pollution firsthand. Depending on the age group, students either read the story or participate in a hands-on demonstration by adding “pollutants” to a fishbowl to visualize environmental impact.

For older elementary students in grades 3-5, the Let’s Raise a Barn kit focuses on agriculture and engineering. After listening to Barn at Night, students discuss farm life and watch videos on different barn structures. The lesson concludes with a “Hay Barn Engineering” challenge, where students design their own structures to meet the specific needs of various farm animals.

Finally, the Search for the Source program is available for two age groups: K-2 and 3-5. Centered around the book Right This Very Minute, this kit teaches students about the “table-to-farm” journey of their food. Students participate in relay teams to categorize everyday items into source baskets, helping them identify the true origins of the products they use.

The initiative began with a volunteer who originally proposed donating books in response to school districts lacking formal agricultural programs. “She wanted to do a book drive and get agriculturally accurate books into Richland County schools,” Dunn said.

After presenting her idea to the Richland County Farm Bureau board, the concept evolved.

Based on feedback from a board member who teaches middle school science and her husband, an FFA adviser and ag teacher, the project shifted from just “giving books” to providing curriculum kits with hands-on activities.

“She understands education and how the curriculum gets introduced in the classrooms,” Dunn said. “She told me, ‘That’s fine, but if you really want them to use it, I think you need to have something more than that.’”

This shift moved the focus from donating books that might remain unused to creating ag literacy kits provided by the Ohio Farm Bureau Foundation and tailored to Richland County educators.

The partnership between the county agencies came about after Dunn learned that RSWCD was developing its own literacy kit. “I was like, ‘Well, they’re right next door to us in our office, why don’t we just go talk to them. If we’re both trying to do the same thing, it makes sense that we would just join forces. And that’s what we ended up doing.”

This partnership allowed them to offer a three-kit package – two focused on agriculture and one on the environment. The joint strategy ensured they weren’t competing for teachers’ limited time but were instead providing an engaging educational tool. They also ensured that the materials reached the “Library Safety Net,” donating kits to the Mansfield Richland County Public Library to reach homeschoolers, 4-H groups and civic organizations.

Even with a great idea, the project faced a major obstacle: funding. “That was one of our biggest challenges,” Dunn said. “We didn’t already have that in our budget and our plan for the year.”

The team embarked on a fundraising phase. They met with local superintendents to ensure genuine “buy-in” and conducted surveys with teachers to determine whether they would use the materials. They then pitched the project to the Gifted Grain Fund via the Richland County Foundation.

“We had to go through a process where they interviewed us... they asked a lot of questions about all of that stuff,” she said. Their persistence paid off, securing grants from the Foundation and the Richland County Youth and Family Council, while the Mansfield Richland County Public Library contributed by donating books specifically for our environmental kits.

A year after implementation, the Cultivating Minds program earned national recognition at the American Farm Bureau annual meeting in Anaheim earlier this year. Dunn completed the lengthy application to ensure the project’s unique details and extensive community partnerships were showcased effectively.

Drawing on her experience with past winning entries, she chose this project because its approach and impact aligned with the bureau’s preference for new programming. Out of hundreds of applications nationwide, it was named one of only 24 County Activities of Excellence, a prestigious award that took the team all the way to Anaheim.

“It’s a pretty prestigious award,” Dunn said. “They only select 24 in the whole United States... they handpicked five of us to talk on the trade show floor, and we were one of them.”