iPad Grant Winners Announced

The Nebraska Corn Board recently chose the winners for their iPads for Agriculture Education grant.

The Nebraska Corn Board received a $5,000 DuPont Pioneer grant for an iPad for agriculture education project and the board matched these funds for a total of $10,000 to purchase iPads.

From January 1 to February 28, 2013 the Nebraska Corn Board accepted applications for their iPad grant program. Teachers completed an application and then submitted an essay, photo or video explaining why they should receive an iPad for their classroom.  In total over 50 applications were received.

Applications were received from across Nebraska including Omaha, Lincoln, Kearney, Hastings, St. Edward, Blue Hill, Bertrand, David City, Holdrege, Randolph, Madison, and many more. 

“We were excited and overwhelmed by all the applications we received,” said Mark Jagels, District two director for the Nebraska Corn Board.  “We know agriculture education is lacking in the classroom and our goal is to reach more students and allow teachers to feel comfortable with agriculture material.”

“Narrowing down the applications to the top twenty was very difficult.  It is unfortunate we were not able to award each applicant with an iPad at this time,” said Jagels.

Schools in Kearney, Holdrege, Bertrand, Norfolk, Murray, Curtis, Plainview, St. Edward, Omaha, David City and Crofton will be receiving iPads this fall. 

Here is one of the winning videos from Meadowlark Elementary's Kindergaren class:

The Nebraska Corn Board will provide a list of agriculture apps, suggest webpages to bookmark, will go into the classroom two times per school year, and will send out a monthly eAgletter as part of the iPad program. 

If your school would like to be added to the monthly eAgletter, email ncb.info@nebraska.gov.

Several videos that were part of the applications can be found on our Cob Squad YouTube page.