MATTAMUSKEET—A local teacher recently received a grant from the North Carolina Farm Bureau, giving students the opportunity to purchase equipment for an agricultural project.

The teacher, Ronnie Crider, a Biology teacher at Mattamuskeet Early College High School, was given the “Going Local” grant through the N.C. Farm Bureau’s Ag in the Classroom program, according to a N.C. Farm Bureau press release. The bureau provides agricultural outreach grants to North Carolina teachers through the program, said Larry Wooten, president of the N.C. Farm Bureau. Each grant is valued at up to $500 and helps teachers provide students with valuable, real-world education and experiences about the agricultural industry, while following the school system’s common core and essential standards, the release said.

“There is no more valuable resource in North Carolina than our students and the teachers charged with their education,” Wooten said. “Through this program, our state’s farmers are investing in the future generations that will lead North Carolina, as well as the future of agriculture — the top industry in the state.”

Crider applied for the grant in the hopes of exposing his biology students to agricultural-related materials like animal sciences, he said. The content is that which he feels his students need exposure to if they plan to stay in the area, which depends on agriculture as an economic engine. The grant was used to purchase an incubator for a classroom project of raising chickens and ducks and then donating the animals to local farmers, Crider said.

“We wanted to basically hatch our own chickens and ducks through incubation to where they hatch and give them to local farmers,” Crider said. “This is what they’re using to study local effects and local animal life here in Hyde County. Without this grant, we wouldn’t have been able to spend the money on everything we need. I’m thankful for Farm Bureau being able to give us the grant to help us here in Hyde. Not only does it help our school, but it helps Hyde County in general, too.

Crider said the eggs should be hatching somewhere between the first week of May and mid-May. The students have been studying the eggs throughout the incubation process and looking at the eggs under lights to see how well they are maturing, Crider said.

“(The students) are all excited about it,” Crider said. “It’s just something they want to participate in and it gives them a chance to do something they wouldn’t be able to do at home.”

North Carolina private and public school teachers are eligible for the grants, which are available twice a year. Grant submission deadlines are April 15 and Nov. 15. For more information, visit www.ncagintheclassroom.com.