Middle school teacher Jennifer Hatch has won accolades for incorporating agriculture into her mathematics curriculum. Photo credit: Virginia Farm Bureau
Much to the delight of their students, some educators throughout the country are incorporating agriculture into their course curriculum. One of these is Jennifer Hatch, an award-winning middle school teacher teacher from Virginia.
Jennifer teaches mathematics at Franklin Middle School in Franklin County, Virginia. Because the class is inclusive, her students display a wide range of learning needs. Her course curriculum includes a unit on gardening with hydroponics, which she admits is one of her favorite units. In their garden, her students grow lettuce, basil, and cilantro year-round.
“The hydroponics project allowed me to present my students with a hands-on way to apply required math concepts while also integrating lessons about agriculture,” Jennifer reveals. The students collect data, record plant measurements and growth rates, and perform data analysis throughout the growing process. “It is gratifying to see the pride in their eyes when they harvest their plants,” she says. The students also gain a farm-to-table experience by preparing meals using the produce grown in their classroom. The students use math to budget and shop for additional ingredients, calculate recipe proportions, and work on serving sizes.
For her hydroponics unit, Jennifer has garnered a 2023 National Excellence in Teaching about Agriculture Award by the National Agriculture in the Classroom Organization, US Dept. of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture and Farm Credit. Each year the organizations partner to honor teachers in pre-K through 12th grade for innovative ways they are using agricultural concepts to teach reading, writing, math, science, social studies, and STEM.
Jennifer has also been honored as a 2024 Regional Teacher of the Year for Franklin County. Last year, she was named Franklin County Public School’s Teacher of the Year. In all, her career as an educator spans 25 years.
