During Tennessee Agricultural Literacy Week, the Cascade FFA Chapter participated with the help of the Shelbyville Farm Bureau. According to the American Farm Bureau Federation “This outreach is more important than ever because the average American is now at least three generations removed from the farm. In fact, farm and ranch families make up less than 2 percent of the U.S. population.”

Due to COVID-19, the Cascade FFA Chapter had to make changes to how they participated in Ag Literacy Week. The members of the Cascade FFA Leadership Team put together a 20-minute video for grades K through 5. This video will be sent to all Bedford County Elementary Schools so the students can learn about Agriculture Literacy.

In the video, the Leadership Team read two books per grade group. Two separate videos were made so that K-2nd grade students could be read agriculture books on their reading level, and the 3rd through 5th grade students could be read books on their reading level. Both videos contained a Leadership Team member reading agricultural books along with the class pet, Ruby the rabbit.

In addition to the reading of agricultural books, the Leadership Team included in both videos a recording of two does, pregnant goats, having an ultrasound performed on them. The elementary students will be able to see the process of the ultrasound and learn how it works. During the ultrasound, you can clearly see a kid, a baby goat, inside the doe’s womb.

In addition to the videos put together for the elementary students, the Shelbyville Farm Bureau donated multiple agricultural books (17) to promote agriculture literacy. The Cascade FFA Leadership Team was able to effectively promote Agricultural Literacy by reading agricultural books, presenting a short lesson about goat’s, and performing an ultrasound on two does. The videos will be sent to all Bedford County Elementary Schools. In addition, the chapter will be donating agricultural books furnished by the Shelbyville Farm Bureau to the Cascade Elementary School Library.