Performing Department
Dean of Education
Non Technical Summary
The primary goal of Project CARAT is to serve as a pilot program to strengthen agricultural (ag) sciences teaching and career resources across all classrooms to create a pipeline of diverse students pursuing ag and food science degrees and careers. Project CARAT's primary activity will be curriculum development and operationalizing the curriculum in secondary classrooms across Kansas through the KFAC website. This activitywill focus on creating a secondary tower gardening curriculum of 10lessons that will incorporate agricultural careers andcoordinate with growing plants/produce in tower gardens.As part of the curriculum development, REC and KFAC staff will create immersive and virtual reality (IR/VR) staff training to support the implementationof tower gardening projects. Project CARATaddresses challenges in ag-education by providing an innovative and viable curriculum that connects content to project-based learning, Kansas academic standards, and ag careers, while also increasing ag literacy through the creation and maintenance of tower gardens. Initially, the curriculum will be pilotedin one school and then revised as needed before being introduced to additional schools through staff training.We expect the project to impact over 4,000 students across the 14 KRPDSdistricts through the online curriculum. In addition to secondary students, we anticipate the program willimpact around 40 pre-service and novice secondary teachers in various content classrooms in Kansas.Project CARAT will impact the entire Kansas ag education ecosystem by providing a new curriculum,resources, and mentor teachers, but disseminating the curriculum online will make it available to any school from any location which has the potential to significantly increase the impact of this project.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The primary goal of Project Career Awareness for Rural Agricultural Sciences through Tower Gardening (CARAT) is to serve as a pilot program to strengthen agriculture (ag) sciences teaching and career resources across all Kansas classrooms to create a pipeline of diverse students pursuing ag and food science degrees and careers. Specifically, CARAT will pilot the use of a tower garden curriculum to teach a range of ag sciences career-related skills to secondary students. 1) develop a new and innovative tower gardening curriculum and resources to engagesecondary students in ag and food sciences; 2) expand students' career awareness, exploration, andpreparation in ag and food sciences; 3) provide training and support in operationalizing newinstructional systems focused on ag and food sciences; 4) create a sustainable, experiential curriculum toprovide students with ag and food sciences career skills; 5) increase teacher retentionthrough curricular and instructional support. We expect the piloted project to expand the ecosystem of ageducation across Kansas by supporting teacher innovation, expanding student knowledge of careerpathways, and supporting ag sciences post-secondary programs, while contributing to ag literacy across.the state and region.
Project Methods
KFAC and REC will collaborate with teachers to develop new & innovative curriculum & resources for teachers to engage secondary students in ag & food sciences through tower gardening. The curriculum will be piloted in one school district. The curriculum will then be revised as needed. V/R training will be made to support school districts in implementing the new tower gardening curricuum. The curriculum and training will be made available on the KFAC website which will be accessible to anyone in the world. Staff training to support the implementation of tower gardening projects will be made available to Kansas schools.