North Central Iowa Ag in the Classroom highlighted the 2025 Iowa harvest for more than 1,100 students. 

Iowa students had the opportunity to learn about this fall’s harvest directly from farmers combining corn and soybeans in the field — all without leaving their school building.

North Central Iowa Ag in the Classroom brought the sights and sounds of harvest straight to students through its innovative FarmChat virtual tour program, providing agricultural lessons designed to teach students about farm life from the comfort of their classrooms.

Brenda Mormann, program director for North Central Iowa Ag in the Classroom, has been with the organization for more than 25 years, providing agricultural instruction to teachers and students across 11 member counties — Cerro Gordo, Emmet, Floyd, Franklin, Hancock, Hardin, Kossuth, Webster, Winnebago, Worth and Wright. The program now reaches about 13,000 preschool through eighth-grade students each year.

Ag in the Classroom’s mission is to help educators teach students about Iowa agriculture and its importance to the economy and society — including where food comes from — while helping them understand that farmers work hard to protect the environment and natural resources and to responsibly care for their livestock.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, in-person lessons shifted online, sparking the idea of bringing agriculture directly to classrooms through live, on-farm video sessions known as FarmChats, Mormann said.

“We’ve been doing harvest FarmChats for many years,” said Mormann. “The bread and butter of North Central Iowa Ag in the Classroom’s programming is ag education weeks, where we spend up to a full week every year in every school we serve.

“Since we were unable to have that face-to-face experience with our students (during COVID), even when they did come back to the classroom, we were looking for other ways to stay connected with them during that time, and increasing our FarmChats was one way to do that.”

Fast forward to 2025, and FarmChats have gained traction — not only highlighting Iowa farmers but also those from across the country. Ag in the Classroom staff have featured a citrus farm in Florida and a melon farm, giving students the chance to see watermelons being planted and harvested.

“Last year, we connected with a tulip farmer in Oregon and another farmer in Hawaii who grows cocoa beans,” Mormann explained.

This year’s focus was on the Iowa harvest and was open to students statewide. “Who knew Iowa corn harvest would be such a popular topic,” Mormann said, noting that 54 classrooms with more than 1,100 students joined one of five sessions. “Teachers as far away as Waukee got to watch our north Iowa farmers combine,” she added.


Valuable learning

Molly Harris, who teaches fourth grade at Jefferson Elementary School in Mason City, said students were amazed while watching the harvest and had many questions for the participating farmers.

“Even though these kiddos are surrounded by cornfields, you’d be surprised how few have actually been in a tractor of any kind,” Harris said. “Our current social studies unit is on natural resources and the regions of the United States, so it ties in nicely.

“It’s all about connections to the real world, right? So when we can take them on a field trip, it just makes it more real. It also provides them with background knowledge and increases vocabulary about those topics, making them more successful when coming across agricultural or geography topics in the future.”

Sheryl Carroll, a third-grade instructor at Lucia Wallace Elementary in Algona, said few of her students live on a farm, so the experience was especially meaningful.

“Students asked about how many bushels per acre were combined, how many acres the farmer harvests and what insects are the most harmful to the crops,” Carroll said. “We participate in Farm Safety Day in September … This harvest, FarmChat followed up nicely with this experience.

“In social studies, students learn about foods the Native Americans grew and how they harvested their crops. We compare and contrast this process to how we harvest crops in Iowa today.”

With tight school schedules, Mormann said, virtual learning offers flexibility that in-person field trips cannot — especially when connecting with farms across the country.

“Participation has grown with every session we offer, so I would say the response has been great,” she said. “These FarmChats have gradually become one of the most valuable parts of our programming.

“If they are unable to join the live sessions, they watch the recording. We take the time and spend the money to make sure we are consistently providing a quality, well-planned experience for our teachers and students, and they have come to count on us as a reliable source for their ag education needs.

“Every session continues to grow in the number of classrooms and teachers participating.”

PICTURED ABOVE: “Even though these kiddos are surrounded by cornfields, you’d be surprised how few have actually been in a tractor of any kind.” Molly Harris


Farmer experience

Just like the ag staff, teachers and students, farmers who participate enjoyed the experience.

Rodney Peters grows corn and soybeans and operates a cow-calf herd near Hampton in north central Iowa. He was one of two farmers participating in the harvest FarmChat this fall.

As a Franklin County Farm Bureau board member and representative on the North Central Ag in the Classroom board, Peters said he’s been providing virtual tours for roughly six years and enjoys interacting with students.

“It’s really a fascinating thing …awesome to be able to do a live feed like this into all these classrooms,” Peters said. “Our youth sometimes doesn’t know where food on the grocery store shelves is coming from.”

Peters shows students the ins and outs of farming, including how the combine works. “Walking around the machine … showing them the rows … how it thrashes … how the combine actually collects the grain,” he said. 

“Some of my favorite questions students have involve how many people are in the day-to-day operation of farming, about the hours and how much work we’re putting in to feed and clothe everyone. They really do have some eye-opening questions.”

Mormann said they plan to continue offering multiple FarmChats every year, including out-of-state offerings this coming winter and spring. 

“We hope to virtually visit a cotton farm in January,” she said.