Fundamentals of Organic Farming and Gardening: An Instructor’s Guide

Alice Rolls, Georgia Organics

In 2006, Georgia Organics developed an organic farming curriculum guide that was extremely popular—almost 1,000 copies were distributed to instructors across the nation within a year. The curriculum was also added to the Georgia Department of Education’s Agricultural Education Curriculum CD, distributed annually to all high school agriculture and science educators in the state.
In 2009, with funding from OFRF, a revised edition was completed with a focus on repositioning the curriculum to sharpen its emphasis on adult instruction while retaining usability for high school instructors. Divided into eight units from “Soil” to “Practical Applications,” each unit includes a lesson text and plans, teacher demonstrations, student activities, PowerPoint presentations and videos. The revisions allow a user to utilize the entire curriculum or extract relevant components for pointed use.
The guide is available for free on the web at Georgia Organics, or copies of the curriculum are available on CD-ROM for $10.
Classes using the revised curriculum materials were held in winter ’08 through spring ‘09 to groups of gardeners and prospective farmers. Evaluations were done by all of these groups and this feedback informed the revisions that were made in the curriculum.

 

Region

Southern

Topic

Soil Health, Tools and Technology

Date Range

2001-2010

Funding Amount

$13,400

Funding Year

2007

Location

Atlanta, Georgia

Collaborators

Lynn Pugh, Cane Creek Farm
Karen Smith, Curriculum Reviewer
Daniel Pearson, Curriculum Reviewer
Kristina Lefever, Curriculum Reviewer