Blossoming lesson plan: Ag in the Classroom teaches fourth graders in La Salle County about plants, animals

During a visit Thursday to Rachel Reff’s fourth grade classroom at Centennial School in Streator, guest instructor Karol Vaughn walked students through an exercise dissecting a Peruvian lily.

At one moment, she had the children squeeze the anther of the flower, then take a piece of scotch tape and press it against those fingertips.

“What do you see?” Vaughn asked.

Some students gasped.

“Pollen!” some of them answered with excitement.

Thanks to funding from the La Salle County Farm Bureau Foundation, Vaughn travels to almost every fourth grade classroom in La Salle County, sometimes three times a year, to share agricultural lessons with students.

This week, her lesson focused on pollinators, the different parts of a flower and how it all ties together to create fruits and vegetables on plants. Prior to having the students dissect their flowers, she had them brainstorm about the different ways pollen travels from the stamen to the pistil of the flower, listing bees, butterflies, ants and hummingbirds as some of the common pollinators, but also talking about how wind can play a key role.

“I want them to understand where their food comes from,” Vaughn said of the importance of the curriculum. “Agriculture affects their everyday lives. It’s not only the food they eat, but also so many careers in our region are agricultural based. It’s important for students to have an understanding of the basics and why it’s important.”

In the past week alone, she’s traveled to Jefferson Elementary in Ottawa, Marseilles Elementary, Dimmick Grade School, Centennial Elementary in Streator and Lincoln Elementary in Oglesby, and she plans to give a presentation Monday at Seneca Grade School.

Vaughn likes to keep the lessons interactive.

When discussing the parts of the flower, she had a large poster board illustration to use as a visual aid, then students were provided a magnifying glass and their own flower to dissect. They also filled out worksheets labeling the parts of a flower and taped them to the pages to take home and show their parents what they learned.

Vaughn, who has been leading ag presentations in La Salle County since August 2018, emphasized since students know how important pollinators are, they need to be ecological stewards.

“If you see a bee on a flower doing its job, are you going to bother it?” she asked them.

“No,” the students answered.

Reff said her students love the hands-on experience and talk about it for days following Vaughn’s lesson.

“I think that Ag in the Classroom allows students to interact personally with the world around them,” Reff said. “I think so often we talk about subjects that do not directly impact them but things like learning about flowers and pollination is something tangible that they can interact with on a regular basis.”

La Salle County Ag in the Classroom program touches on different topics, such as corn, wheat, beef, pumpkins and other lessons throughout the school year. Each lesson is accompanied by an activity, said Claire Orr at the La Salle County Farm Bureau. She said lessons are geared to be in-line with the science and math curriculum at schools.

Vaughn drops off materials for teachers to utilize in future lesson plans, including activities, such as crossword puzzles, that expand on the previous lesson, and seeds for teachers to grow their own plants in their classrooms.

The La Salle County Farm Bureau Foundation funds the Ag in the Classroom program through fundraisers, including the recent frozen food sale.

“We are constantly trying to add more but we have to raise funds to accomplish our goals,” Orr said.

Moving through the flower dissections Thursday, Vaughn had one last reveal for students. Left with only the flower’s ovary after removing and talking about the sepal, petals and stamen, the students were instructed to gently pull it apart.

“Now what do you see?”

More gasps. “Seeds,” they answered.

A student raised their hand to ask a question: “If you plant them, will they grow flowers?”

“Yes,” Vaughn answered.

“It’s amazing what students are able to learn from the program,” she said after her presentation.