Winners Announced for 2024 Teacher of the Year and Partner in Ag Literacy Awards
Congratulations to our Teacher of the Year and Partner in Ag Literacy winners!
From St. James School in Erie, Kelley Damore was selected for Teacher of the Year for 2024! Damore teaches fourth and fifth grade at St. James and infuses agriculture into many of her math, science, and social studies lessons throughout the school year. She likes to use items from local farms or her own garden to show students up close. As an example, Damore has used corn and applesauce to demonstrate matter and mass. They’ve made butter in the classroom leading up to Thanksgiving.
“Kids really enjoy working with food products and when they see how they are grown or produced, and know more about agriculture to carry forward into their lives,” said Damore.
Many of Damore’s ideas were hatched after attending the Educator’s Ag Institute and finding the National Ag In The Classroom lesson matrix. She has hosted the Dairy Princesses in her classroom and has taken her students out for a farm field trip to see agriculture in action.
Ms. Damore will receive her award at the 2024 Foundation Breakfast in November, and will also receive a stipend to help her travel to the 2025 National Ag In The Classroom Conference, where she will represent Pennsylvania.
There were two runners-up for Partner in Ag Literacy (PAL) this year, who both displayed an enthusiastic commitment to Ag Literacy in their own ways. Chloe Whitmoyer, the ag teacher for Warrior Run Jr/Sr High, and Grow PA Agriculture, a workgroup dedicated to helping K-12 students find their place in the agriculture industry.
The winner of this year’s PAL award, however, is the Center for Dairy Excellence. From their collaboration with other local ag education groups to their flagship programs like Adopt A Cow, the Center for Dairy Excellence has truly made its mark in Pennsylvania and across the country.
The Adopt A Cow program, just one of several that the Center hosts, is a yearlong experience in which an educator can adopt a calf and receive monthly updates with photos, lesson plans, and activities on how that calf is growing and developing on the dairy farm where she lives. This program also comes with live chats, farm tour videos, classroom activities like “Vote for your Favorite Calf” and many other enrichment activities.
Nearly 40,000 classrooms worldwide enrolled in the Adopt A Cow program during the 2023-2024 program year, with 1.3 million students reached.
To all of our winners and runners-up, we wish you luck in the school year ahead and congratulations on your achievement!
