FoodPrints Teacher Dana Newland helps students plant snow peas. Photo by Fiona Morgan, Kentucky Department of Education, March 4, 2025
(FRANKFORT, KY) – Students at Second Street School (Frankfort Independent) are learning all about agriculture and food in the school’s new FoodPrints class.
The school’s elementary and middle school students are getting hands-on experience with growing plants and food such as lettuce, herbs, radishes and microgreens.
During a recent class session with 2nd graders, FoodPrints Teacher Dana Newland taught students about seed planting. She started the session sharing the basics of plant growing, then sent the students to rotate between four stations. One group watched a video about agriculture, while another read books on the subject. Newland said she matched the school’s current reading curriculum for the session, supporting science, math and reading standards through the lessons.
Newland helped one group of students plant snow pea seeds in reused milk cartons for them to take home. Frankfort Independent Farm to School Coordinator Connie Lemley, who helps with the class, brought the last group outside to learn about compost in the school’s community garden. She gave each student a bowl of compost to search for the worms that fertilize it.
Newland said they always have at least one hands-on station, which usually involves cooking, tasting fresh local foods or gardening. The FoodPrints class also works with school cafeteria staff to sample new dishes featuring local foods during class, share student feedback, and then encourage students to try new menu items when they are served in the cafeteria.
Lemley purchases food from local farmers for the school cafeteria and for the FoodPrints class; students get to try fresh local spinach, salad turnips, different colors of kale and pea shoots in both the classroom and the cafeteria.
Last year as part of the school’s garden club, kindergarteners planted butternut squash at a local farm. Some 8th graders recently harvested them, and now the class is using them to bake butternut squash chocolate chip muffins for the cafeteria.
Because of the class, students have expanded their taste for fruits and vegetables.
“I think that a lot of our kids weren’t eating fruits and vegetables in the cafeteria or at home, and I think now that they understand how it helps their bodies to grow and to be healthy, that they’re a lot more excited to eat (them),” Newland said.
Lemley said she was surprised when students in the class were so willing to try vegetables like raw spinach and daikon radishes. Newland said some parents are shocked at how much healthier their kids are eating.
“They’re like, ‘I can’t believe you got my kid to eat spinach,’” Newland explained. “I taught them about the health benefits of it. When children understand where their food comes from and how it helps their body they are more likely to try new foods.”
Over the past couple of months, Newland has taken over 200 students on a field trip to the Harold R. Benson Farm at Kentucky State University, which is free to the school. She said the farm frequently sets up field trip activities for students, with stations where they learn about goats, about drones in relation to agriculture, and about where soil comes from.
Frankfort Independent Farm to School Coordinator Connie Lemley teaches students to search for earthworms in the dirt. Photo by Fiona Morgan, Kentucky Department of Education, March 4, 2025
The model for the FoodPrints class comes from the Fresh Farm FoodPrints program in Washington, D.C.
While not every school has the resources to start a dedicated agriculture education class, teachers can still incorporate agriculture into their lessons and take kids on field trips to local farms.
Another great way for schools to teach more about agriculture is by participating in Agriculture Education Week, which is March 17 – 23.
Ag Education Week is a collaboration between the Kentucky Department of Education, Kentucky Department of Agriculture and Team Kentucky to deliver an all-encompassing learning experience for students, equip educators with ready-to-use lessons and foster community involvement to create vibrant learning opportunities on the diverse world of agriculture for students.
Along with ready-to-go lesson plans, teachers can bring agriculture education to their elementary and middle school classrooms with a virtual live panel and opportunities to bring in guest speakers, projects and activities for students and field trips.
Resources and project ideas can be found on the Kentucky Department of Agriculture’s All In for Ag Education Week website.
While Newland’s position is funded through the Frankfort Independent district, other funding for the FoodPrints class and Frankfort Independent’s farm-to-cafeteria work came from a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farm to School implementation grant that ended in December 2024 and a current USDA grant called Healthy Meals Incentive (HMI) that runs through September 2025. The HMI grant currently funds several stipends and part-time positions in the district, including Lemley’s position, that support the FoodPrints class, incorporation of scratch cooking and local foods in the school cafeteria, garden club and the school gardens.
Lemley said there have historically been a range of agriculture education grants through USDA that schools can apply for to support these types of farm-to-school activities.
The school started the class this year, and it’s taught from kindergarten through 8th grade. The only agriculture program they had previously was the garden club, which students participate in after school. Newland said the school counselor who runs the garden club, Amy Young, wanted to make it into a class and asked Newland to teach it.
The FoodPrints classroom is filled with plants and vegetables that students take care of. They even have an aquaponics center that grows lettuce and raises fish. Middle schoolers test the water every day and keep a detailed chart.
Newland said the hands-on aspect of the class brings more vibrant learning experiences to students. She also incorporates other subjects into her teaching.
“A lot of times when people think about ag education, they just think about a garden … but we’re also writing, we’re reading, we’re engaging; there are so many aspects of it that we’re including that are not just planting or harvesting,” Newland said.
For instance, she taught kindergarteners about fractions before their regular math class did, when they learned to cut pizza into sixteenths.
“Our kids at Second Street are getting exposed to science standards and retaining it because we’re doing hands-on activities,” Newland said. “They’re reading about it, they’re writing about it, they’re listening about it, they’re interacting with it.”
She said students can apply agriculture and cooking lessons to their lives right now and believes it’s a crucial subject for children to understand.
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