There is no doubt 2020 was a challenging year for most, but especially for children and instructors. New ways of educating were initiated and because of this “outside of the box” thinking, some programs have even been able to thrive in the COVID environment. “I was continually amazed at the resilience of students and teachers alike, who embraced the programming and adapted to the changes like virtual learning, wearing masks and practicing social distance,” says Loess Hills Agriculture in the Classroom Education Program Coordinator, Melanie Bruck. In the past year, Loess Hills has reached more than 3,240 students in Carroll, Crawford, Harrison, Shelby and West Pottawattamie Counties through 227 class presentations while another nearly 3,000 learned through virtual story time. Bruck says reaching kids through an iPad and Facebook Live wasn’t always easy as she recalls some of the challenges. She says during one reading of “My Family’s Egg Farm,” she had to dodge rain drops as she searched for a wi-fi signal. Afterward, as she was showing the nesting boxes in her family’s chicken coop, viewers saw the rain coming down all around—even landing on the book. Even so, the program grew in 2020, with more than a doubling of teachers requesting agriculture programming.
