It is the mission of the Iowa Agriculture Literacy Foundation to educate Iowans, with a focus on youth, regarding the breadth and global significance of agriculture.
IALF is an effort to serve as a clearinghouse of information, taking best practices from existing agriculture education programs, incorporating business needs related to STEM, and presenting a unified approach with benchmarks from a statewide perspective. The mission of Agriculture in the Classroom is to "increase agricultural literacy through PK-12 education." An agriculturally literate person is defined as "one who understands and can communicate the source and value of agriculture as it affects quality of life." Agriculture in the Classroom (AITC) programs seek to improve student achievement by applying authentic, agricultural-based content as the context to teach core curriculum concepts in science, social studies, language arts and nutrition. By encouraging teachers to embed agriculture into their classroom, AITC cultivates an understanding and appreciation of the food and fiber system that we all rely on every day. AITC is unique within the agricultural education community as the lead organization to serve the full spectrum of PK-12 formal education.
