On November 18th, the PA Friends of Agriculture Foundation, a charitable organization supported by the PA Farm Bureau (PFB), honored a hardworking and dedicated teacher with the Teacher of the Year Award. Celebrating Maria Young of Providence Elementary School as the Teacher of the Year winner, Foundation Chairman Chris Hoffman presented her with her awards and prizes.
PFB’s Ag Promotion Committee highlights the significance of agricultural education and firmly believes that educating the public, starting with the youth, plays a vital role in fostering awareness about agriculture’s importance. Through this award, the Ag Promotion Committee aims to recognize the outstanding contributions of educators who go above and beyond in order to instill agricultural knowledge and understanding in their students.
“Promoting agriculture is no longer optional… it’s a necessity,” says PA Farm Bureau President Chris Hoffman.
As a resident in New Providence, Lancaster County, PA, Young and her students are surrounded by agriculture in all directions of the county. For this reason, she integrates agriculture into the classroom as much as possible. Young is an alumna of the Educator’s Ag Institute program. The Institute is hosted by the Foundation every summer, providing the opportunity for teachers to participate in hands-on workshops and farm tours and are given the opportunity to learn how to weave agriculture into their classroom lesson plans. After attending these workshops, Young realized that despite living in a rural community with a country landscape right outside her classroom windows, students were struggling to understand how agriculture fit into their daily lives.
“Receiving this award is incredibly special to me and a huge honor. Right away I think of my grandparents. Over 70 years ago, they started a small family farm in Northwestern Pennsylvania. They taught their children the value of hard work, deep faith, determination, and perseverance. They valued education, having not had much of it themselves, and encouraged us to pursue our dreams. I am proud to be a first-generation college graduate who now has the opportunity to take that deep love of the land and livestock and incorporate it into my daily lessons. This is a wonderful opportunity that I do not take lightly. I’m so thankful for all the organizations like the Pennsylvania Friends of Agriculture, Allied Milk Producers and Discovery Dairy who support educators through the Ag Institute and other avenues and desire to teach today’s youth about Pennsylvania and its rich agricultural heritage. Thank you for making this possible from those of us who love our students and the land we live on!”
She has taught numerous agricultural concepts through the past school year via many varied and interactive activities. Her and her classroom participated in the Adopt a Cow Program put on through the Discover Dairy Education Program. The class became very close with their beloved cow, Milkshake, waiting not so patiently for updates on her height and weight, her pictures, and how well she was doing. Young implemented her own, secondary program to that in the classroom where she gave the students a bag of ag literacy materials and a stuffed cow so that they could take “Milkshake” home with them. With the stuffed cow, students documented their adventures together. Finally, at the end of the Adopt a Cow Program, Young offered the classroom to visit Milkshake at her farm and let’s just say, the students were ecstatic.
In addition to that, Young started teaching an embryology unit, the first of her fellow teachers to do so. The first year, she started with a dozen chicken eggs which blossomed into something much larger where they are now hatching both chicken and duck eggs. She also posts an interactive bulletin board where the class records data, learns about chick development and lifecycle, learns the chicken body parts, and of course, correct terminology and the hatching process. With this, the rest of the school is also invited to participate by signing up for time slots to come see the chicks as well as hear student presentations of all the hard work that is being put into raising them.
But Young doesn’t stop there. She integrates a lesson where the class reads Little House in the Big Woods, learns how to make butter, and then performs a lab where they actually make butter themselves. Her class participates in the Foundations Mobile Ag Ed Lab each year. She provides after school tutoring where she utilizes farm animals to teach. She takes her students on nature trail lessons, pulls Discover Dairy lessons for “Fun Fridays”, and provides a large library of agricultural literature to all her students.
Young has done a wonderful job of creating a diverse, agriculturally accurate curriculum that gets students beyond excited to learn each and every day. She received prizes with their recognition including a $250 cash prize, another $250 to use for classroom supplies, and a trip to the National Ag in the Classroom Conference in Providence, Rhode Island next year.
Teachers interested in learning more about Educator’s Ag Institute can visit www.pfbfriends.com. Registration for the 2026 session will start on March 1, 2026.
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Contact: Macy Grove, (717) 731-3555, mlgrove@pfb.com
ABOUT THE FOUNDATION: Pennsylvania Friends of Agriculture Foundation is a charitable organization supported by the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau. The Foundation has been educating the public and promoting agriculture, the largest of the Commonwealth’s industries since its inception in 1986. To learn more about foundation programs, go to www.pfbfriends.com