Performing Department
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Non Technical Summary
The need for professional development in agriculture literacy is needed now more than ever for our current classroom educators. Most agriculture education teachers in the classroom have been through an agriculture education program that prepares them as an educator in the classroom. This includes pedagogy, classroom management, curriculum design, lesson planning, delivery of lessons, positive reinforcement and much more. What our university programs lack for educators in programs is the hands-on training in many areas of agriculture education. For example, a high school agriculture teacher may be teaching an equine science class but may have never even touched a horse. While they have proven knowledgeable in the topic, they lack the hands-on experience needed to truly engage and deliver the quality of education as their counterparts that may have grown up with horses, worked at a livestock auction, volunteered at a horse rescue and so on.The ONE HERD Symposium was designed to address this need. This professional development event gained its name after the project team, current educators at both secondary and collegiate levels and workforce stakeholders discussed the needs of students, educators and the animal science workforce. Feedback and discussions from all entities explained an ideal scenario would be for all of the entities described to work together, collaborate and have a shared vision that we are all in this together, we are ONE HERD, working for the betterment of youth agriculture education.This 4-year project will provide high school agricultural teachers with novel hands-on educational experiences focusing on the livestock component of the food system, including veterinary medicine, regulatory activities, production practices, industry involvement, and animal care and welfare. Commodities covered in these educational events may include dairy cattle, beef cattle, small ruminants, and wildlife species susceptible to foreign and emerging animal diseases, among others. Federal, state, and local animal health officials will be engaged in the educational events to expand awareness of animal health regulatory activities as well as animal health regulatory related career opportunities. Additionally, the veterinary profession, production professionals, animal health industry, academic, extension, FFA, 4H, and agriculture educator communities will be actively engaged in the educational events.
Animal Health Component
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Research Effort Categories
Basic
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Applied
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Developmental
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Goals / Objectives
This project is expected to help agriculture educators develop a greater awareness on ag literacy specifically with respect to the livestock component of the food system, including veterinary medicine, regulatory activities, production practices, industry involvement, and animal care and welfare. The project is also expected to increase agriculture educator awareness of all the animal health career options in the veterinary, regulatory, production, industry, animal care and welfare, academic, and Extension areas.
Project Methods
The approach for the 2024 ONE HERD Symposium is to continue offering this professional development event for agriculture educators. The project team goal #1 is to increase participation and attendee enrollment while at the same time offering a high-quality educational experience at a reduced to minimal cost. By obtaining the needed funding we will be able to reduce the cost for educators and school systems. Attendees from low resource schools will be given priority and therefore able to better cover the costs associated with travel, transportation, lodging, and registration based on our proposal. Reducing the barriers for educators will increase attendance and therefore allow more collaboration and outcomes.The PD and the Co-PDs will identify professionals from the veterinary, regulatory and animal health, production, academic, extension, FFA, 4H, and agriculture educator communities to assist in the development of a relevant agenda that aligns with each year's theme a needs of educator attendees. A continuing education (CE) planning team will be identified and together the CE Committee will plan the content and identify subject matter experts to present at the event.The conference will start with a Keynote Address followed by a Plenary Session, both of which will align with the designated theme for each year's event. Two of the three days of the event will be a structured conference style meeting with both didactic and hands on learning. Each session will be 50 minutes in length and participants will be awarded up to 7 hour of Continuing Education units for each day of the symposium.Didactic learning and skills topics might include the following taught by subject matter experts:Scope and Sequence of Courses for Veterinary Science CurriculumFunding: Federal, Local, and Program SustainabilityCreating a Strong Career Development Event TeamWhat an Agriculture Teacher Needs to Know about the Veterinary-Client-Patient-Relationship (VCPR)Ethics of Show Animal MedicineOne Health curriculum and education for the classroomImplementing New Technology and Electronic Tools in the ClassroomSmall Animal Essential Veterinary Skills/Small Animal Advanced Veterinary SkillsLarge Animal Essential Veterinary Skills/Large Animal Advanced Veterinary SkillsThe topics above were all presented at the 2023 ONE HERD Symposium and received excellent participant feedback.The third day of the symposium will offer small group immersive experiences focused on livestock commodities such as dairy cattle, beef cattle, small ruminants, wildlife susceptible to foreign and emerging animal diseases, or poultry. Each of the species-specific short courses will have 20-25 participants and at least 4 facilitators. Facilitators may represent federal, state, and/or local animal health agencies, federal or state meat inspection, animal care and welfare entities, local veterinarians, livestock producers, animal health industry representatives, academia, Extension, FFA, 4H, and other agriculture educators.The small group immersive experiences are designed to focus on one species and cover many topics in depth. Examples might include the following:At a dairy, federal and state animal health officials might be present to discuss regulatory disease concerns such as Brucellosis and Tuberculosis, how animals are tested, and why, and what happens if an animal tests positive for a regulatory disease.At a facility that contains wildlife susceptible to foreign and emerging animal diseases (FEAD), federal and state animal health officials might be present to discuss emergency actions that might be taken to protect those species should a FEAD occur in the state; additionally federal animal care officials might be present to discuss what sort of inspections are required on a regular basis.At an academic based meat lab, state meat inspection personnel might be present to explain what and why they inspect.Other subject matter experts may also be present as facilitators to teach concepts such as reading body language, safe animal handling and movement, how to safely work a cattle chute, biosecurity on a premise, among many other topics in livestock ag literacy. Additionally, each of these facilitators will serve a role in raising awareness of workforce development in the livestock and animal health profession.Within each focused educational experience, the 20-25 participants will be further divided up into teams of 5-6 participants. Each team will be responsible for creating educational resources such as presenter materials and handouts that can be used in the classroom. The VSCP project team will create an online repository where all the team's materials will be uploaded and shared with the entire group of attendees. Each year of the project, it is expected that approximately 20-25 different sets of educational resources will be shared. At the end of the grant cycle, it is expected that approximately 80-100 total lessons will be shared with all four years of participants. Access to the repository will also be provided to all presenters and facilitators engaged over the duration of the project.The three-day event will provide ample opportunity for attendees to network with each other and with facilitators.