Progress 09/01/23 to 08/31/24

Outputs
Target Audience:This year's project audience group includes all participating faculty members, graduate/undergraduate students from MTSU School of Agriculture, Tennessee Stem Education Center, targeting non-formal educators, and high school students at grade level 9-11 in Middle Tennessee. During this reporting year, the digital agriculture summer camp program as well as the various other degree programs offered at MTSU was promoted at the Tennessee FFA Convention with approximately 3,500 students in attendance. Additionally, the project team assisted in the MTSU Raider Roundup event, and the recruiting materials were distributed over the Tennessee Ag Teacher listserv reaching more than 350 teachers statewide. Beyond that, the project information was also shared on MTSU College of Basic and Applied Science, MTSU School of Ag Raider Roundup Event, and the Tennessee Home School Education Association and the Tennessee Association of Independent Schools. We ended up receiving close to 30 applications, and admitted 12 for the summer camp event for this year. The project team also hosted two outreach events primarily targeted at non-formal educators in the state. Changes/Problems:Nothing to report during this reporting period. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?At MTSU, Ms. Carly Altman has completed all of her course work for her PhD Degree in Mathematical Science Education and is currently working on her dissertation. She has been actively involved in communication, event coordination, and data gathering and processing for both the Summer Camp and Academy Events. Mr. Robert Conner has obtained his degree in MS Data Science, and is currently completing his internship program in the private sector. Mr. Chris Hall, was hired as a temporary worker for maintaining and managing the summer camp project field. All participating non-formal educators, again, have received their completion certificate and passed the TRUST test from FAA. All participating summer campers have passed the TRUST test with more than 90% indicating their willingness to pursue higher-education in the STEM fields. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?For the third year, the project team participated in the MTSU Raider Roundup event for both summer camper recruiting and information dissemination. More than 600 high school students attended the events to explore different career paths in agriculture and life sciences, data science, and engineering-related disciplines. Additionally, the project Co-PD, Dr. Alanna Vaught helped organize the MTSU Spring Fling Events exposing concepts such as urban farming, digital farming, and sustainable agriculture to thousands of elementary students and their teachers. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?The project team has competed the NCE for the current program. We will continue searching for grant support from the state, private, and federal sources. Meanwhile, we will continue maintaining and improving the MTSU Digital Agriculture Summer Camp Farm area and using it as a major recruiting camp ground and community education and research hub area for enhancing public relation.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Objective 1: Collaboratively establish the Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) Digital Agriculture Academy to 1) develop Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) training modules for non-formal educators at the K-12 level on UAS and Data Science application in agriculture; 2) provide face-to-face interaction opportunities where scientists could share their work with non-formal educators and students; 3) support non-formal educators to set and fulfill goals towards professional growth and advancement We have completed the third year Digital Agriculture Summer Camp and Academy Event. We have completed refining the D2L online course-Digital Academy, and all 2024 non-formal educators have successfully completed all training modules and passed the final exam. The on-site event includes research project/field demonstration on the MTSU Farm, UAS Laboratory tour and seminar with Dr. Kevin Corns, and hands-on UAS training and operation on the farm. All SAE training modules, covering contents over Data Science and UAS Aeronautics for both non-formal educators and students have been completed and released available to the general public on the SAE-for-All Educator Resources Website. Objective 2: Establish the MTSU Digital Agriculture Summer Camp to 1) recruit and engage high-school student participants in PBL and TBL experiences on UAS and Data Science Application in agriculture supervised by faculty members and graduate students; 2) develop SAE training modules for students on UAS and Data Science application in agriculture; 3) collaboratively build training modules for obtaining a UAS pilot license; 4) teach students about basic principles of data analytics and coding as well as career opportunities in Digital Agriculture; 4) train high-school students on working in a team environment, data recording, and the dissemination of preliminary scientific results. The third year MTSU Digital Agriculture Summer Camp took place from May 29th to June 14 of 2024. For the third year, the project team received close to 30 applications and 12 high-school students aged 15-17 from more than 10 different high schools in the state. All participating students were divided into four groups, and were involved in PBL and TBL experiences in Data Science, UAS, and agriculture-related topics. Knowledge modules over coding basics with Python, UAS-based aeronautics and safety issues, and technology driven agricultural production were covered during the group learning and activities. Each team also designed and built their own UAV platforms, and completed several flight missions, and gathered multi-spectral imagery data on the MTSU Digital Ag Research/Demonstration Field, and all of them passed the TRUST (The Recreational UAS Safety Test). For the agriculture week, students gained hands-on experience using agricultural remote sensing equipment for data capturing and basic statistical analysis. They were also trained on commercial-scale specialty crop production, soil sampling and mapping, and completed their project presentation at the end of the summer camp event. We had one group of students evaluated the effectiveness of using NDVI and SPAD Meter for testing N deficiency symptoms of tomato plants. One group investigated the impacts of soil moisture status and nutrient condition on eggplant production. The last group evaluated the possibility of using thermal sensors for testing moisture status and water stress on zucchini plants. All SAE training modules were fully refined and uploaded on the SAE-for-All Educator Resources Website. Objective 3: Enhance ongoing non-formal STEM activities involving K-12 schoolchildren and educators across several institutes and education centers at MTSU (Data Science Institute, TN-STEM Education Center-TSEC, and Center for Educational Media) in cohesion with both the Digital Agriculture Academy and Summer Camp. For this reporting period, Data Science Institute has hosted a whole week training session on coding and basic statistics. Several graduate students and faculty members from the Data Science Institute participated. TN-STEM Education Center hosted the 2024 Southeastern STEM Education Research Conference. Ms. Carly Altman, the PhD student supported by this program presented her preliminary findings at that conference. The Center for Educational Media provided the conference room and technical support for the opening and closing ceremonies of the summer camp events. Objective 4: Cultivate strong relationships among K-12 students, educators, professors, and graduate students to 1) support long-term communication, 2) establish feedback systems and evaluation metrics, 3) form a sense of community that will ultimately enhance K-12 students' interest and aide in their continuation of education in STEM, including but not limited to Digital Agriculture/Data Science. For the third-year reporting period, the project team has conducted more than ten outreach events on the MTSU Digital Ag Summer Camp Small Farm area in addition to our proposed program activities, reaching out to more than 80 educators in the state. For this year, the project team also teamed up with the MTSU Deeper Learning Institute again and disseminated preliminary research findings and event availability towards high school teachers from four school districts in Middle Tennessee. Finally, the project team also collaborated with four local high school sand supervised five after-school research projects with five high-school students from the Middle Tennessee area.

Publications

• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Digital Agriculture Summer Camp and Non-formal Learning: A Comparative Analysis of the First and Second Year Camp Participant Knowledge and Postsecondary STEM Interests. Southeastern STEM Education Research Conference, Murfreesboro, TN.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Altman, C., C. Mosley, and S. Cui. 2024. Digital Agriculture Summer Camp: A Comparative Analysis of the First and Second-Year Camp Participants Knowledge and Postsecondary STEM Interests. American Association for Agricultural Education National Conference, Manhattan, KS. May 20-23.

Progress 09/01/22 to 08/31/23

Outputs
Target Audience:The project audience group for this reporting period includes all participating faculty and graduate/undergraduate student members from MTSU, targeting non-formal educators, and high school students at grade level 9-11 in Middle Tennessee. In 2023, the project team distributed the program brochures to the Tennessee FFA Convention with approximately 3,500 students in attendance. Additionally, the project management team distributed program information to 557 students during the MTSU Raider Roundup event, and the recruiting materials were distributed over the Tennessee Ag Teacher listserv reaching 364 teachers statewide. Beyond that, the project information was also shared on MTSU School of Agriculture Facebook page, MTSU School of Ag Raider Roundup Event, and the Tennessee Home School Education Association and the Tennessee Association of Independent Schools. Consequentially, we received doubled amount of applications compared to the first year. We ended up selecting 16 high-school students and 11 non-formal educators to participate in our 2023 Digital Agriculture Summer Camp and Digital Agriculture Academy Events, respectively. The project team also prioritized the under-represented and minority student/educator applicants. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?At MTSU, Ms. Carly Altman is currently in her second year of pursuing her PhD Degree in Mathematical Science Education. She has provided tremendous support in communication, event coordination, and data gathering and processing. Mr. Robert Conner is about to complete his degree in MS Data Science, and he also presented his research work at the ASHS Conference of 2023. Both Robert and Carly had continued providing supervision during the day-time activities of the summer camp event and the virtual and on-ground components of the Academy event for this year. Additionally, the project team has added another student assistant Mr. Chris Hall for maintaining and managing the summer camp project field. All participating non-formal educators, again, have received their completion certificate and suffice training to pass the TRUST test from FAA. All participating campers have passed the TRUST test and more than 95% indicated their willingness to pursue college education in the STEM fields. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?For the second year, the project team has incorporated the MTSU Raider Roundup event for both recruiting and information dissemination. More than 500 high school students attended the events to explore different career paths in agriculture, data science, and engineering fields. Many teachers, students, and parents learned more about the Digital Agriculture Center, College of Basic and Applied Sciences at MTSU. Ms. Carly Altman has presented the first year data at the Southeastern STEM Education Research Conference of 2023. She is currently working on her dissertation and preparing several journal articles. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will continue the Digital Agriculture Summer Camp and Academy Event for one more year, and the project team is currently seeking additional support from institutional, state, and federal levels to continue the project events beyond of the duration of this grant program.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? We have completed the second year Digital Agriculture Summer Camp and Academy Event. We have refined the D2L online course-Digital Academy, and all 2013 non-formal educators (3 4-H development agents, 7 FFA advisors, and 1 scout leader) have successfully completed all training modules and passed the final exam. The on-site event includes research project/field demonstration on the MTSU Farm, UAS Laboratory tour and seminar with Dr. Kevin Corns, and hands-on UAS training and operation on the farm. The SAE training modules over Data Science for non-formal educators and students have been completed and released available to the general public on the SAE-for-All Educator Resources Website. The second year MTSU Digital Agriculture Summer Camp took place from June 1st to 16th of 2023. For the second year, the size the application pool has been doubled and we have recruited 16 high-school students aged between 15-17, from more than 12 high schools in the state. Participating students were divided into four groups and were involved in PBL and TBL experiences in Data Science, UAS, and agriculture science topics. Particularly, for this year, students have learned coding basics with Python. For the UAS training week, students have learned about the basic UAS-based aeronautics and safety issues. They also designed and built their own UAS platforms, and completed several flight missions and gathered multi-spectral imagery data on the MTSU Digital Ag Research/Demonstration Field, and all of them passed the TRUST (The Recreational UAS Safety Test). For the agriculture week, students were trained on specialty crop production, agricultural remote sensing concepts, soil sampling and mapping, basic statistical analysis, and completed their project data collection, data interpretation, and presentation at the end of the summer camp event. We had one group of students working on evaluating the optimal soil condition for tomato production, one group investigating the impact of passive solar greenhouse on eggplant and production using thermal sensor, one group analyzing the effectiveness of using NDVI sensors for tomato production, and one group on identifying the optimal soil pH range on eggplant production. The SAE training modules over UAS and data science application in agriculture for students have been completed and released available to the general public on the SAE-for-All Educator Resources Website. For this reporting period, the graduate student supported by this grant Ms. Carly Altman presented a research poster titled "Digital Agriculture Summer Camp: An Examination of Non-formal Learning to Promote Knowledge and Postsecondary STEM Interests" at the Southeastern STEM Education Research Conference organized by TSEC. The Center for Educational Media has hosted both the opening and closing ceremonies of the summer camp events. For the second year of the project implementation, we have hosted seven major outreach events in addition to our proposed program activities, reaching out to more than 80 formal and non-formal educators in the state. In addition to the main summer events organized on campus targeted at undergraduate students, non-formal educators, and high school students; the project team also conducted field day and outreach events to disseminate our preliminary survey results and findings to the general public through several recruiting events. Additionally, we also teamed up with the MTSU Deeper Learning Institute and targeted directly at high school teachers recruited from more than three school districts in Middle Tennessee. The fully developed SAE Teacher/Student Kits are currently fully accessible at the SAE Educator Resources site (https://saeforall.org/educator-resources/) and have received substantial amount of downloads and views in the past year.

Publications

• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Digital Agriculture Summer Camp: An Examination of Non-formal Learning to Promote Knowledge and Postsecondary STEM Interests. Southeastern STEM Education Research Conference, Murfreesboro, TN.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Conner, R., C. Hall, and S. Cui. 2023. Fine-Tuning a Deep Learning Model for Accurate Detection and Identification of Diseases and Pests in Potatoes, Bell Peppers, and Tomatoes. American Society to Horticultural Science Conference, Orlando, FL. July 31- Aug 4th.

Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/22

Outputs
Target Audience:During this first reporting period, the main target audience group was the overall project team, participating high-school students, and non-formal educators recruited during the reporting period. Particularly, the project management team at MTSU includes five faculty members, two full-time temporary staff members (one outreach event coordinator and one curriculum design specialist), two graduate students (one MS and one PhD), and three undergraduate students. For the first year, we selected 11 high-school students and 15 non-formal educators to participate in our Digital Agriculture Summer Camp and Digital Agriculture Academy Events, respectively. The project management team interacted regularly with different high schools, non-formal educator groups, and the general public in the state. Meanwhile, during the event planning and coordination phase, the project team also communicated with various on-campus entities, including the housing department, student dining services, campus motor pools, Center for Media and Education group, the information technology division, and etc. Many parents also choose to participate in our Summer Camp Opening and Closing Ceremony during this year. Finally, many project PD/Co-PD (Drs. Cui, Mosley, and Vaught) have participated in numerous recruiting events during the first year to promote our program to more high-school students and teachers in our area. Changes/Problems:The only change worth mentioning during this reporting period is the departure of a full-time temporary staff member in charge of event coordination. The project team had modified the distribution of the workload. Currently, all participating faculty members and graduate students are collaboratively handling event coordination and planning, and there should be no issues moving forward What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?At MTSU, two graduate students were recruited. Ms. Carly Altman is currently working as a Graduate Student Assistant and Event Coordinator supported by the project while pursuing her PhD Degree in Mathematical Science Education. She has provided tremendous support in communication, event coordination, and data gathering and processing. Mr. Robert Conner is an MS Data Science student supported by this project. He completed his degree in Plant and Soil Science last year and currently focusing on incorporating data science concepts and use cases into agriculture education. Both Robert and Carly had also provided supervision during the day-time activities of the summer camp event and the academy virtual and on-ground components for this year. These duties provided them invaluable experiences in pursuing their future career in STEM education or data science related disciplines. All participating non-formal educators received their completion certificate and suffice training to pass the TRUST test from FAA. All participating campers have passed the TRUST test and all of them indicated their willingness to pursue college education in the STEM fields. This project also provided tremendous opportunities for the professional development of Drs. Cui, Mosley, Vaught, Corns, and Haruna. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Our project implementation has drawn attention from local and regional media groups. For example, the Tennessee Farmer Coop is the largest agricultural supply cooperative in the state, serving more than half million customers through 164 retail outlets in TN and neighboring states. Their publication (Our Coop issue) is the most popular journals directly accessed by producers, retailers, and other community members in many rural area in our state and even the southeastern US. Our project was featured in their 2022 April issue. The RFD-TV (a popular American pay television channel owned by Rural Media Group, Inc.) is one of the most popular channels devoted to rural issues, concerns and interests. Our project was featured in their February Interview of 2022. Meanwhile, we have used many public events organized on the farm and on campus to inform different audience groups about our project. We are planning on disseminating survey data through scientific publication and conference proceedings in the future. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?The project team at MTSU will continue working with the NASAE group to complete the SAE Teacher/Student Kits on Data Science. We will modify our training programs (including both the Summer Camp and Academy) to better align with the content and guidance formalized in those training kits. We will continue our recruiting effort and make much earlier start for the year-two events.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Objective 1: Collaboratively establish the Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) Digital Agriculture Academy to 1) develop Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) training modules for non-formal educators at the K-12 level on UAS and Data Science application in agriculture; 2) provide face-to-face interaction opportunities where scientists could share their work with non-formal educators and students; 3) support non-formal educators to set and fulfill goals towards professional growth and advancement The project research team at MTSU led by Dr. Cui had successfully organized our first-year of Digital Agriculture Academy Event in early June of this year. Particularly, three departments/centers on campus have involved in designing and implementing this event towards non-formal educators, including: the School of Agriculture, the Aerospace Department, the Data Science Institute, and the University College (which supervises the online education for the entire campus). Particularly, we have designed a D2L online course-Digital Academy, which covers four knowledge areas related to Digital Agriculture; including: Digital Agriculture Overview, Introduction to Data Science, Soil Driven Precision Farming, and Introduction to Unmanned Aircraft Systems. All 2012 non-formal educators (6 parent group members, 6 FFA advisors, and 3 scout leaders), successfully completed all training modules and all scored more than 70% on the final exam. The on-site event includes research project/field demonstration on the MTSU Farm, UAS Laboratory tour and seminar with Dr. Kevin Corns, and hands-on UAS training and operation on the farm. The SAE training modules over UAS application for non-formal educators have been completed and released available to the general public on the SAE-for-All Educator Resources Website. The kit focusing on Data Science is under construction and will be released by the end of this year. We will continue the communication and interaction with the educator participants to help them set professional goals and make career advancement in the future. Objective 2: Establish the MTSU Digital Agriculture Summer Camp to 1) recruit and engage high-school student participants in PBL and TBL experiences on UAS and Data Science Application in agriculture supervised by faculty members and graduate students; 2) develop SAE training modules for students on UAS and Data Science application in agriculture; 3) collaboratively build training modules for obtaining a UAS pilot license; 4) teach students about basic principles of data analytics and coding as well as career opportunities in Digital Agriculture; 4) train high-school students on working in a team environment, data recording, and the dissemination of preliminary scientific results. The first MTSU Digital Agriculture Summer Camp was successfully implemented from May 31st to June 17th of 2022. For the first year, we have recruited 11 high-school students aged between 15-17, from more than 10 high schools in the state. All students were divided into three groups and participated in PBL and TBL experiences in Data Science, UAS, and agriculture science topics. Particularly, students have learned data science coding basics, and gained hands-on experience programming Deep Racers Amazon AWS remote cars during the data science week. For the UAS training week, students learned about the basic UAS-based aeronautics, designed and built their own UAS platforms, and completed several flight missions and gathered multi-spectral imagery data on the MTSU Digital Ag Research/Demonstration Field, and all of them passed the TRUST (The Recreational UAS Safety Test). For the agriculture week, students were trained on basic remote sensing concepts, agricultural imagery data analysis, soil sampling and mapping, and completed their project data collection, data interpretation, and presentation at the end of the summer camp event. We had one group of students working on perennial grain crops, one working with mixed lettuce production, and one with raised-bed radishes. We have recruited three undergraduate students for this event (two providing night-time supervision during the camp weeks, and one for maintaining the MTSU Digital Ag Research/Demonstration Field year-round). The SAE training modules over UAS application for students have been completed and released available to the general public on the SAE-for-All Educator Resources Website. The kit focusing on Data Science is under construction and will be released by the end of this year. Objective 3: Enhance ongoing non-formal STEM activities involving K-12 schoolchildren and educators across several institutes and education centers at MTSU (Data Science Institute, TN-STEM Education Center-TSEC, and Center for Educational Media) in cohesion with both the Digital Agriculture Academy and Summer Camp. There is nothing to report during this project period as the majority of effort was spent on implementing the Digital Agriculture Summer Camp and Academy Events, as well as, designing and publishing the SAE Career Kits for non-formal educators and students. Objective 4: Cultivate strong relationships among K-12 students, educators, professors, and graduate students to 1) support long-term communication, 2) establish feedback systems and evaluation metrics, 3) form a sense of community that will ultimately enhance K-12 students' interest and aide in their continuation of education in STEM, including but not limited to Digital Agriculture/Data Science. In the first year of the project implementation, we have hosted more than three outreach events in addition to our proposed program activities, reaching out to more than 50 formal and non-formal educators in the state. We also attracted a large number of K-12 teachers to our Digital Ag Research/Demonstration Field. We have developed and gathered feedback survey data and constructed a communication list that will help connecting with program participants beyond the completion of the training programs. To date, we have received inquiries from many participants regarding coming back again next year. The developed SAE Teacher/Student Kits will become fully available to the general public on the SAE-for-All Educator Resources Website. This education/learning contents will be conveniently used by more than 700 thousand FFA members and educators nationwide. Meanwhile, the project management team will participate state FFA convention events and many Agricultural Education Conferences nationwide to promote our projects to larger groups of audience in the upcoming years. We will also host more local education/outreach events to attract more students and non-formal educators from the Middle Tennessee area.

Publications

• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2022 Citation: The team competition press conference at the 95th Tennessee FFA Convention focusing on the creation of the Digital Agriculture Center at MTSU.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2022 Citation: Moore, C., 2022. Ag Education Takes Flight. Our COOP Magazine April Issue featured story (https://www.mtsu.edu/digital-agriculture/docs/Coop.pdf).