Illinois Ag Ed CDE Information

Good afternoon Illinois Ag Teachers & Friends!  We all know value and importance of agriculture education.  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.  The Illinois Agricultural Education CDE was developed to give students the opportunity to explore this valuable career opportunity. 

General Event Information:

• Each chapter can submit one entry 
• Contest will be broken into two parts, Preliminaries (Lesson Plan) and Finals (Demonstration & Judge’s Questions) 
• Lesson plan/supplemental materials (powerpoint, handouts, Prezi, etc.) must be submitted electronically through this Google Form by 11:59pm on April 10th.  All teachers and students will receive a confirmation email from me upon receiving the materials (Students are not registered for the contest unless you receive this email).  If your school is not Google compatible or there are any issues/questions, please contact Megan Coy (mcoy@ilaged.org)
• All participants will be notified by May 3rd, 2021 as to whether or not they placed in the top 10.  Those placing in the top ten (based on lesson plan scores) will be eligible to compete in the final round.
• Finals are tentatively scheduled to occur the Tuesday of State FFA Convention (June 8th).  The FFA Board plans to make decisions about State Convention later this spring.  At that time we will know if we will be able to hold the final round in person.  More information will be shared as it becomes available.

Click here to access the full set of rules and rubrics that will be used and here for an example lesson plan.  A copy of the blank lesson plan template, that must be used, is attached below.

Please email mcoy@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 like NAAE Communities of Practice, share MYCAERT resources, 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 (attached to this email)
• 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.