UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Clinton Arionzi is the first to admit that poetry isn’t his area of expertise. But a few years ago, when the agricultural education teacher at Eden High School in Kampala, Uganda, looked for ways to engage his students beyond a traditional lecture, he turned to poetry to help them explore agricultural concepts.
The idea, he said, grew from his involvement with the Global Teach Ag Network — known as GTAN — in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, which provides programs and resources for educators from kindergarten through higher education to teach global agriculture, sustainability and food security.
One of its programs, GTAN Creates, encourages teachers to incorporate creative expression in their classrooms. While using poetry in the classroom was a new teaching tool for Arionzi, he decided to try it. He said the students’ response surprised him.
“My students embraced the activity, participated more enthusiastically and found new ways to connect agricultural concepts to their own experiences,” Arionzi said, adding that his experience inspired teachers in 14 East African schools to use poetry in teaching. “Poetry is a way of bringing fun and life into my classroom.”
GTAN Creates is supported through a philanthropic gift by Hiram Larew, a retired U.S. Department of Agriculture employee and longtime poet who saw an opportunity to bring his two interests — poetry and food security — together.
Throughout his career, Larew wrote and published poetry but didn't combine his creative work with his professional interest in food security until 2017, when he founded the Poetry X Hunger initiative to engage writers and artists in the global effort to end hunger. The initiative's online library features poems by students in East Africa, among many others.
Larew said he saw an opportunity through GTAN to help educators use the arts to engage students in agricultural issues, especially those that reflect young people’s perspectives on hunger and agriculture.
“The Global Teach Ag Network was an early innovation lab that adopted the use of creative arts, including poetry, as a teaching tool in ag classrooms,” Larew said. “More are doing so now as a result of its leadership. Through GTAN Creates, teachers have shared tools, ideas and teaching modules with each other as they are boldly using the arts in the classroom.”
Larew said he believes creative expression can complement agricultural science and technology by giving students additional ways to engage with the issues affecting food systems and their communities.
“Much of what students learn is focused on understanding facts and developing new insights,” he said. “We need to know the role of phosphorus in plant production. But, as humans concerned about fellow humans and as stewards of the land, we also need to describe and share our feelings about the role of food, agriculture and nutrition. The arts open hearts and minds as we work to ensure everyone next door and around the world has safe, nutritious and affordable food to eat. Simply put — the arts won’t grow soybeans, but they will help grow those who do.”
For Arionzi, that connection between agricultural knowledge and personal expression has become central to his teaching. Through poetry, students explore food insecurity, consider agriculture’s importance to their communities and reflect on opportunities to address local challenges. He also has observed an increase in students choosing the agricultural education elective at Eden High School.
“In Uganda, where agriculture plays a critical role in our livelihoods and food security, I see that growing interest as particularly meaningful,” he said. “By providing students with a creative way to connect classroom lessons with their own lives, I hope to encourage more young people to consider agriculture as a path to employment, entrepreneurship and stronger communities.”
Arionzi’s project illustrates how an idea introduced in one classroom can grow into a broader educational effort, helping teachers exchange instructional approaches and giving students new ways to understand and communicate complex issues, according to GTAN co-founders Daniel Foster, associate professor of agricultural and extension education, and Melanie Miller Foster, associate teaching professor of international agriculture. Both witnessed the impact firsthand during a 2023 visit to Arionzi’s classroom.
“Creative expression, whether it’s poetry, drawings, sculpture, songwriting or other forms of art, gives students another way to connect what they learn about agriculture with the world around them,” Miller Foster said. “When students can explore these issues through their own ideas, experiences and voices, they have an opportunity to see themselves as part of the solution. That is what we want GTAN Creates to help educators foster in their classrooms.”
Deanna Behring, assistant dean and director of Ag Sciences Global, echoed Miller Foster’s sentiment and expressed the college’s appreciation for Larew’s support.
“His generosity is helping our college explore new ways to engage students in some of the most pressing challenges facing agriculture and food security,” she said. “GTAN Creates is a perfect example of how philanthropy can help reach more educators and students, expanding opportunities to use creative expression to explore agriculture’s role in addressing hunger and strengthening communities.”
Donors like Larew advance the University’s historic land-grant mission to serve and lead. Through philanthropy, alumni and friends are helping students to join the Penn State family and prepare for lifelong success; driving research, outreach and economic development that grow our shared strength and readiness for the future; and increasing the University’s impact for families, patients and communities across the commonwealth and around the world. Learn more by visiting raise.psu.edu.