USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service and the National FFA Organization have partnered to develop new educational tools to help promote agricultural and statistical literacy among kindergarten through 12th-grade students. The classroom-ready resources, which include lesson plans and supporting materials, are aligned with national curriculum standards for science, math and social studies. The materials use current Census of Agriculture data to teach a variety of concepts including discovering new trends in population subsets and evaluating diversity among farmers.
NASS administrator Dr. Cynthia Clark says that by including these materials in the classroom curriculum, teachers can help students better understand statistics and their importance to the farming community, rural America and society as a whole. She says these lesson plans contain relevant information to give students a realistic view of statistical processes used to track trends and changes in U.S. agricultural production, economics and demographics.