Agriculture

VI Women in Agriculture Brings STEAM Farming Program to Four Schools as Agriculture Literacy Events Begin

Students at four schools on St. Croix and St. Thomas are getting hands-on experience with gardening, specialty crops, nutrition and agricultural careers through a Virgin Islands Women in Agriculture Association initiative that culminates this week with three days of Agriculture Literacy activities. The program uses agriculture to teach science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics — or STEAM — while developing broader skills such as patience, responsibility, leadership and entrepreneurship. VIWIAA says students may use mathematics to measure garden beds, science to understand soil and writing to document what they observe, connecting classroom subjects with the process of growing food. The initiative is supported through the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Specialty Crop Block Grant Program through the V.I. Department of Agriculture. Federal records show that USDA awarded the department $59,149.86 for the project, formally titled “Building Youth Capacity for Sustainable Food...