Non Technical Summary
Technology-savvy youth, with positive attitudes for food and agricultural sciences, is essential for the continued advancement of transformative agricultural technologies that address related complex agricultural and environmental issues. Additionally, science-based curricula need to integrate opportunities for youth empowerment through civic engagement.To address this, we will cultivate STEM focused food and agricultural interest in youth through the development, testing, and evaluation of experiential education curricula that focus learning on real-world, community relevant experiences. Curriculum #1-SkyMappers: Agricultural Drones and GIS Mastery targets the development knowledge and skills with uncrewed aerial systems ("drones"), remote sensing, and geographic information systems (GIS) in agriculture and food systems. Curriculum #2-Dronovation: Cultivating Change with Teens, invite youth to apply their learning by undertaking a real-world project varying with their local geography and agricultural systems (e.g., charting landscape changes, storytelling agricultural histories, monitoring livestock behavior, or analyzing food access and justice). These youth will become `Ag Champions' and share their learning and projects in their communities to communicate the benefits of agricultural technologies. Target participants are teenagers, with educator instructions for adaptation and inclusion for those from groups underrepresented in STEM, including females and Latino youth.The curricula and educator professional development guide will be replicable for use in many geographic locations and agricultural enterprises. After three years, we will disseminate evidence-based culturally relevant peer reviewed curricula, educator professional development guide, and promising practices briefs, replicable in a broad array of non-formal educational contexts, with the novel approach of applying learning to real-world community relevant agricultural issues through project-based learning.

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
806	6010	3020	10%
803	6010	3020	90%

Knowledge Area
806 - Youth Development; 803 - Sociological and Technological Change Affecting Individuals, Families, and Communities;

Subject Of Investigation
6010 - Individuals;

Field Of Science
3020 - Education;

Goals / Objectives
Ag from Above x Ag for All intends to cultivate young people's food and agricultural interest through hands-on activities using drone, remote sensing, and geospatial technologies. In this three-year project, we aim to develop, test, evaluate, and refine two youth curricula for use in non-formal education contexts (replicable in many contexts), and an educator professional development guide, focusing on Uncrewed Aerial Systems ("drones"), remote sensing, and GIS mapping in agriculture and food systems, and their real-world application in agriculture (e.g., charting landscape changes after a wildfire, storytelling agricultural histories, monitoring livestock behavior, or analyzing food access and justice). Curricular learning goals are to strengthen young people's scientific literacy, cultivation of positive attitudes for food and agricultural sciences, and aspirations for higher education in food and agricultural fields, all in order to foster the development of technology-savvy young people who will educate the public. The educator professional development guide will prepare educators to facilitate the curriculum in non-formal contexts, including 4-H clubs, afterschool programs, or camps.

Project Methods
Methods include:(1) Curriculum development to develop, test, iterate and evaluate two curriculum based on the backwards design approach and a theory-based curriculum development process guided by a logic model. Preliminary evaluation adn pilot testing will be used. Pedagogical elements include experiential and project-based learning, youth development, culturally responsive teaching.(2) Recruit educators with experience in culturally relevant youth development and shared lived experience with participating youth. Develop and implement educator professional development with workshops, community of practice, and on-demand web sessions.(3) Implement the curriculum reaching 25 youth (ages 13-18) at each of 4 sites over two years.(4) Evaluate youth outcomes and educator experiences using a design-based methodology with a convergent parallel mixed methods design consisting of youth surveys, focus group interviews, and artifact analyses, triangulated with educator interviews, to support making evidence-based improvements to the curriculum while ensuring lessons reach their intended learning goals.