Florida fourth graders will have a chance to participate in a living history lesson in the 2025/2026 school year.

The University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Services (UF/IFAS) Extension Service will offer public and private school classes the opportunity to participate in the “Adopt a Cowboy” program and a special “A Land Remembered" program.

Lindsey Crum, with UF/IFAS Extension Service, said the “Adopt a Cowboy” program started with a pilot program in Collier County in 2022. It has since expanded to include thousands of Florida fourth graders, including public and private schools in Hendry, Glades and Okeechobee counties.

She said fourth grade was chosen because that is when students focus on Florida History.

Teachers go online to register their classes. After registration is complete, the class is assigned a cowboy and given instructions for a schedule to watch the videos and do the program activities.

Videos cover topics such as:

• A day in the life of a Florida cowboy.
• Wildlife habitat, clean water and purified air come from Florida ranches.
• The superpowers of beef (nutrition and byproducts.)

The Extension Service provides each participating class with a copy of the “Cattle Tales” book to read with the class. There are class activities that go along with the book.

Students in Hendry, Glades and Okeechobee counties also have the opportunity to meet their cowboy or cowgirl in person. While any school may participate in the program, the in-person events are not yet available in all counties.

“Participating counties have in-person events through AgVenture or through school events,” Crum explained. “They get to meet the cowboy, the cowboy’s horse and the cowboy’s dog.”

Crum said the criteria was developed to meet the criteria of the Florida Department of Education.

The cowboys who participate in the program are volunteers.

“We select cowboys based on their willingness to participate, their cowboying skills and the amount of time they spend cowboying because of the amount of footage we have to get,” Crum explained.

“We have to get hours of footage,” she said. “A lot of the footage, the cowboys take themselves.”

She said they are currently focusing on involving more coastal counties because agriculture has less visibility there.

Even the children in the rural areas “don’t have the same connection they would have two or three generations ago,” she added.

In the 2025/2026 school year, participating classes will also have the opportunity to interact with the cowboys on the Great Florida Cattle Drive.

The program will use Patrick Smith’s “A Land Remembered” for a six-week program. Participating classes will read the students’ version of the book.

During the Great Florida Cattle Drive, Jan. 26-30, participating classes can watch live-streamed videos from the event.

Polk County Extension Agent Bridget Stice said the “A Land Remembered” program is separate but complimentary to the “Adopt A Cowboy” program.

“The hope is teachers who are doing Adopt a Cowboy can also do ‘A Land Remembered’,” she explained. In addition, schools in areas where there are not cowboys available for the Adopt a Cowboy program can still participate in “A Land Remembered.”

Stice said she will be on the Great Florida Cattle Drive and they will set up some WiFi hot spots along the way to help with the live feed.

“Each day at 10 a.m., we will offer the live stream to the classrooms,” she said. They will interview participants on the drive, talk about Florida history and allow students to ask questions.

Registration for the program opened May 29 and as of June 2, there were already 721 Florida fourth grade classrooms signed up, representing nearly 12,000 students. Registration closes Sept. 26.

Stice said home school groups may also participate, registering their group as a “classroom.” The curriculum is designed for fourth graders, she explained, but there isn’t an age limit for students.

 She said she has received some requests from adults who would like to watch the live feed as well, but availability will depend on what kind of platform they use to stream the video. That decision will be made after Sept. 26 when they have a final count on the number of fourth grade classrooms participating.

 Stice said she is working with a book distribution company to see if they can get a discounted rate for teachers to order classroom sets of “A Land Remembered,” and will share suggestions for obtaining grants to purchase the books for the students. Some schools already have copies of the popular Florida novel which chronicles the life of a family of settlers in Florida.

Students and their families can also participate in the special events at the Okeechobee Cattlemen’s Rodeo Arena on Jan. 31 at the end of the cattle drive.

The Great Florida Cattle Drive will begin at the IFAS Deluca Preserve near Yeehaw Junction. Over six days, a herd of hundreds of cattle will be driven south across ranchland in Okeechobee County to arrive at the Okeechobee Cattlemen’s Rodeo Arena on Jan. 31.