Knoble hopes that by educating teachers, agricultural awareness will spread to the general public. She hopes from the kids it will spread to the parents. People are more open to learning about something when it's something their kids tell them they learned at school. The OSU session celebrated its fifteenth year this summer. Five years ago the program expanded to Eastern Oregon and began hosting a second session in La Grande.
Participants also visit local farms and do hands-on activities.
SAI provides the teachers with curriculum and discusses with them ways they can incorporate what they've learned into the classroom. According to data from past surveys, the percentage of teachers who say they use what they learned at SAI is very high. Knoble says most participants come away from the sessions with changed attitudes when it comes to agriculture. I know we're making a difference. Hopefully more students will know a lot more about agriculture at the end of this school year than they did at the beginning.