Elizabeth DeGrie, Staff Writer
11-13-2009
A camp created by the Louisiana Tech University IDEA Place to teach students how agriculture relates to science has earned the agricultural sciences department at Louisiana Tech an award from the Farm Bureau Federation. The award is $2,000 from the national organization and $2,000 from the Louisiana branch. IDEA Place museum educator Lindsey Keith-Vincent and head of the agricultural sciences department at Tech, Gary Kennedy, worked closely to make the camp a success.
“The agricultural sciences department were all willing to help, and they had some really great ideas,” Keith-Vincent said.
“There are so many things in agriculture, I was pretty naive to what could be discussed.”
Around 15 students attended the camp and learned about various agricultural topics. Students witnessed a mock veterinary surgery on a teddy bear and cow milking. They also made ice cream from the milk. Students also studied various plants, giving them a rounded overview of agriculture for the first year of the camp.
Because of the huge variety of topics available, Keith-Vincent said she believed the camp could continue for several years.
“We always try to do something a little different from the year before,” Keith-Vincent said.
After the camp was completed, Kennedy decided to submit the idea to the County Activities of Excellence program sponsored by the Farm Bureau Federation.
The award received by Tech was one of only 15 given in the nation and was the only one received by a Louisiana submission.
Kennedy, who is also the president of the Lincoln branch of the Farm Bureau Federation, said he believes the reason the camp won this award was because it worked toward achieving the goals of the federation.
“The federation promotes all aspects of agriculture, including education, production of agricultural products and lobbying on behalf of agriculture,” Kennedy said. “It’s a non profit organization strictly to support agriculture.”
Kennedy said that anything that promotes agricultural education is very important to the federation because today’s youth are disconnected from all aspects of agriculture.
“Our camp is an example of education activity promoting agriculture with children,” Kennedy said. “Today so many children are removed from agriculture, they don’t understand where food comes from.”
A big reason for this, Kennedy said, is because of the reduction of population in rural areas. Previous generations were highly involved in the production of food, but he said many people today don’t understand things that older individuals take for granted.
The money from the award will be used to send Keith-Vincent and Lindsay Gouedy, Sparta Conservation educator, to the national Farm Bureau Federation convention in Seattle.
They will present the camp idea to those in attendance.
“They will show other states what we did and show them how they can sponsor similar camps,” Kennedy said.
“They will use the funds to travel and to create handouts and materials to summarize what we’ve done.”
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