Katie Buckley of the LeRoy school district in McLean County, Illinois, received the 2019 Illinois Agriculture in the Classroom (IAITC) Teacher of the Year award during Illinois Farm Bureau’s annual meeting.
Buckley is a secondary special education teacher and STEM educator across the LeRoy school district.
She works with students of all grade levels as she passionately explores the niche of STEM education and agriculture.
Buckley strives to offer her students classroom experiences that will allow them to create solutions to real-world problems within their school, community, and country.
Providing her student’s opportunities to investigate issues related to agriculture has become an important component of her lesson plans.
In the fall of 2019, Buckley’s students engaged in hands-on opportunities with drone technology and agriculture, as well as STEM-related careers in precision agriculture.
Students have also studied various soil types from across the nation to better understand the planting process.
Hydroponics, community gardens, and livestock management have been the focus of some of her past projects with students.
Buckley is an alum of the American Farm Bureau STEM on the Farm Program, is a recipient of McLean County Maitland Grants and McLean County Farm Bureau AITC grants, and her classrooms were honored as winners of the 2017 and 2018 American Farm Bureau Purple Plow Challenge awards for the integration of STEM concepts.
Buckley is also an American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture Purple Plow lesson writer.
Buckley received a plaque and trip to the 2020 National Agriculture in the Classroom Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah.
She is Illinois’ nominee for the National Excellence in Teaching Agriculture Award.
