Your corn checkoff dollars are helping fourth graders in the Chicagoland area learn more about corn and livestock farming.  Here’s how!

The Illinois Pork Producers Association, with funding from the IL Corn and the Illinois Soybean Association, sponsors Chicago, IL fourth grade classrooms on a field trip to Fair Oaks Farm in Indiana.  There, the students learn the science, technology, engineering, and math involved in Illinois agriculture, specifically pork farming.

The field trip supports Illinois ag topics already being taught in those fourth-grade classrooms.

Students start by touring the Pig Adventure (including the Pork Education Center) and have a birds-eye view of modern pig farming in all its stages. Students also tour the new Crop Adventure where exhibits feature intricate root systems, how weather affects our crops and interesting facts about plant life.

Studies show that one on-farm experience can change a person’s perspective about agriculture for the rest of their lives.  Working together, Illinois agriculture is striving to provide that positive ag experience to the non-farm students in our state, helping to create more understanding and sympathetic voters and consumers of the future.