Born and raised in White County, Katie Peters is no stranger to local agriculture. Her mother and father, Paula and Phil Walker, own and operate Indian Creek RV. Phil has been a strong leader and advocate in the NCOE FFA Alumni organization. Katie graduated from NCOE in 2015, continued her education at Rend Lake focusing on Ag Business and eventually gaining her Bachelors at Murray State. Peters is, as of 2022, the Ag in the Classroom Coordinator for White and Wayne Counties. The program has been around since 1981. Peters talks about the program’s birth.
“There was a disconnect in how people were thinking they were getting their food and the actual agriculture industry. If you ask the average person on the street where their food came from, they would answer ‘the grocery store’ – you’d get that answer alot. That’s not a bad answer; it’s just an uninformed answer. We can’t really have that disconnect because it’s detrimental to our country as a whole. Agriculture interlocks with resource conservation. It’s important for our industry, our economy, our gross domestic product and the decisions that we make in the agriculture industry affect our country and the world as a whole. So we can’t ignore the fact that people think their food just comes from the grocery store.”
She’ll work with between 600 and 650 kids in a given month between the two counties focusing on 2nd – 4th graders.
“They decided the best way to reach kids in elementary levels on a state basis. Illinois actually has one of the better programs. We have someone in my position in nearly every county in Illinois.”
Some of the work she does in the communities the Ag in the Classroom program serves include Ag Safety Days for 4th graders and a summer Ag Institute for teachers in June.
“Hopefully when these teachers learn about what they’re doing, they bring it back to their students and it comes full circle. So win/win for us. And also, these teachers are getting continuing education credits through the process. They no longer get those credits at teacher’s meetings so this is a good opportunity for them to get those that they’re required to have.”
She says among the most important thing she does though is working directly with youngsters in engaging ways.
“I do agriculture lessons with them. We discuss a topic in agriculture. We normally do a hands on activity and they also get a take home item. So the kids get to be creative and enjoy a topic that’s important in agriculture. We’ve talked about specialty crops, this month we’re talking about water, and last month we covered soil.”
Farm Bureau produces an Illinois Ag Mag that goes home with kids as well. You can learn more about Ag in the Classroom by contacting the Wayne or White County Farm Bureau at 382 – 8512 or by visiting http://www.agintheclassroom.org.
