Recipient Organization
East Bay High School
(N/A)
Gibsonton,FL 33534
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
This project is collaboration between the East Bay High School Academy of Aquaculture and the Hillsborough Community College Aquaculture Program. The collaboration includes facility sharing, a co-internship program at the high school aqua lab site, industry partner-to-student and student-to-student mentoring, and a middle school aquatics summer camp.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
This project is collaboration between the East Bay High School Academy of Aquaculture and the Hillsborough Community College Aquaculture Program. The collaboration includes facility sharing, a co-internship program at the high school aqua lab site, industry partner-to-student and student-to-student mentoring, and a middle school aquatics summer camp. Objectives: The project objectives include the following: provide internship experiences, support self-sustenance, provide summer exploratory career camps for middle school students, produce a series of 30 aquaculture-learning module, foster interest in the field of agriculture education, increase successful student transition to postsecondary education, and establish dissemination pathways. Outcomes: As a result of the internship experience, interns advance their knowledge in aquaculture and acquire a greater understanding of the scientific inquiry process. Interns are better prepared for postsecondary course work. The
development and dissemination of learning modules enhances classroom instruction. Web site and other dissemination methods result in replication of the project at different sites. Increased enrollment in aquaculture programs at the high school and community college level and an increase in the number of students with agriculture education career goals is an outcome expectation. Project products include: 50 Aquaculture Research project presentations; 1 Web Site; and, 30 Instructional Modules.
Project Methods
Interns will be teamed, one postsecondary student to one high school student, encouraging mentoring and commitment. Students will be paired based on their similar, related, or parallel inquiry interest. The internships will take place from 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM three nights a week with three hours on Saturday available to students if scheduled in advance and monitored by co-project director Michael Yates at the high school site. During the summer this schedule is modified. Flexibility in scheduling of the required 100 hours required of interns is built into the project. Dr. Falls, from the community college, meets with all interns periodically at the Aqua Lab to informally assess student progress. Student time cards are kept. Interns present 2 informal progress presentations to industry advisors. Interns keep process project journals. Secondary student interns are encouraged to combine their internship with Future Farmers of America (FFA) competition entries and/or science
fair entries. The middle school career camp serves to promote the program to interested middle school students while offering our interns an opportunity to work with younger students. Interns use knowledge gained from their research to produce instructional modules that include one hands-on activity for students to perform as well as an assessment. The project provides positive mentoring experiences and practical agriculture career education planning information through an informal event hosted at the Aqua Lab with a panel of agriculture teachers from the community college and the school district. By visiting the Hillsborough Community College and interacting with college personnel and college students, the project nurtures successful transition of students to the postsecondary level. The project produces a series of dissemination pathways including one professional conference presentation during the grant period and project web page posting student research presentations, the
learning modules, as well as information on the education pathway(s) available for certification as an agriculture educator. During each semester internship cycle the project accomplishes the following: holds project planning meetings (co-directors & industry partners, administrators, district personnel, and evaluator); recruits interns; conducts intern facility & internship requirements orientations; interns conduct research; interns conduct aqua lab production; interns present preliminary and final research presentations; interns write instructional modules and field test modules; interns publish research presentations and learning modules on the web site.