Maryland Agricultural Education Foundation

The Maryland Agricultural Education Foundation, Inc. (MAEF) is a 501 (c) 3 dedicated to increasing agricultural literacy and agricultural education, MAEF is a nonprofit organization with programs serving pre-kindergarten through post-secondary audiences.

Agriculture plays a critical role in our lives. It provides an experiential teaching tool for the core curricula of science, social studies, life skills, mathematics, and language arts. Incorporating agriculture into teaching and learning creates the foundation that students, as future citizens, need to make educated decisions regarding food choices and nutrition, community issues, land use planning, and natural resource conservation.

In the months of March through May several of our staff are reading agricultural literacy books to elementary school students at local schools. Jenny Lee Freebery, Kelsie Fronheiser, and Juliana Kaiser have read to dozens of students ranging in age from pre-school through fourth grade as part of the Maryland Agricultural Education Foundation Agricultural Literacy Program. This program encourages people in agricultural professions to read a farming related story with kids. This year’s book is Cows Can Moo! Can You? by Bonnie Worth who is part of the Cat in the Hat Learning Library. They also do an activity with the kids matching farm equipment to its job. For the younger students they have an activity showing how all the ingredients in pizza come from farms. By the end of the year, they will have read to six local elementary schools!

Jenny Freebery reading to students at Kent School

Juliana Kaiser reading to students at Radcliffe School