Local Farmers Help Bulloch Schools Win $25K Grant for STEM

Some of Bulloch County’s finest farmers have helped Bulloch County Schools earn a $25,000 grant.

The Monsanto Fund offers “America’s Farmers Grow Rural Education” (AFGRE) grant every year to aid in purchasing math and science resources for elementary schools in the area. The grant is based on merit of the application, need by the school system, and support from the community.

The grant was written on the premise of creating programs to aid with problem-solving tasks and projects related to agriculture as well like plant science, rain water run-off, weather, the water cycle, air currents, building simple machines, circuitry, construction and more.

The Bulloch County School system participated in an 8-month nomination, application, and national judging process. The school system was selected after the Statesboro Bulloch County Chamber of Commerce’s Agribusiness Committee partnered with AgSouth Farm Credit to help gain support from Bulloch farmers in the community. A total of 15 farmers helped in the process.

The Bulloch County farmers who assisted with the program include: Will Anderson, Tommy Anderson, John Emery Brannen, and Barbara Rushing  of Register; Kathryn Bowen, Gina Deal, Amanda Klingel, Shelly Phillips, Trey Renfroe, Alan Spence and Chris Thompson of Statesboro; Rawls Neville and Ray Sanders of Brooklet; Melanie Reddick of Portal and Angela Wofford of Jacksonville, GA.

• Apply knowledge and skills learned in their academic classes to problem-solving tasks and projects;
• Collaborate on long and short-term projects with local STEM community partners from Georgia Southern University like the Interdisciplinary STEM Institute, the Center for Sustainability, the Math and Physics Department and other departments, the Wildlife Education Center, Multimedia Development Center, and Fabrication Lab (FAB Lab). Other partners include Ogeechee Technical College’s Natural Resources program, the Statesboro-Bulloch County Chamber of Commerce Agribusiness Committee and ag leaders, the local University of Georgia Extension Service, the Georgia Youth Science Technology Center.
• Improve student familiarity with data collection and how to use data to formulate evidence-based conclusions in order to pursue more advanced, long-term projects with the entities listed above.