District 2 Ag Ed Invitational CDE:

Good afternoon, Illinois Ag Teachers & Friends!  We all know that agriculture education is a career area where we need more people.  In order for the agriculture, food and natural resource sectors to find employees, we need agriculture educators sparking the interest of students to look at all the career possibilities. 

I am excited to announce the 2023 AgEd CDE General Information:

• CDE held 1/31/23. Location TBD (but likely at JJC)
• No limit to the number of students who may participate from each chapter.
• Event will be held in-person at scheduled times
• Participants must wear official dress
• Contest will be broken into two parts, Preliminaries (Lesson Plan) and Finals (Demonstration & Judge’s Questions). The student will prepare a lesson for a standard Intro to Agriculture course.
• Registration due by 4:00 pm on Wednesday, 1/25/23 on ILAgEd.org
• Lesson plan/materials (PowerPoint, handouts, Prezi, etc.) should be submitted via email to LAllen@ilaged.org by 4:00 pm on January 27, 2023.  All teachers and students will receive a confirmation email upon receiving the materials (Students are not eligible to participate in the contest unless you receive this email).

State AgEd CDE rules and rubrics will be used (here). Click here for an example lesson plan.  A copy of the blank lesson plan template, that must be used, is found on the CDE webpage.

Please email LAllen@ilaged.org with any questions or if you would like any further information!

Prepping Students for the Ag Ed CDE

Ideas for preparing students for the Illinois Agriculture Education CDE or encouraging students to look into Ag Ed:

• Have students choose an area of agriculture that they are interested in (make sure it would work in Intro to Ag- almost everything does!)
• Show students websites/resources from ILAgEd,, look at CASE activities, or check out Illinois Ag in the Classroom for ideas to make the lesson come to life.
• Have them look at the example lesson plan and give them access to the template.
• Have students present their lesson in their Ag class, your Introduction to Agriculture Class or to any group of students.  It's great practice for them, a good experience for your other students and will give them an appreciation for what you do every day!
• This is a great activity for an entire class or for individuals.