Progress 09/01/15 to 08/31/18
Outputs
Target Audience:The primary target audience for this project is potential students that could benefit from a post-secondary education to obtain a career in the Precision Agriculture field. Our Center of Excellence is well suited to seek students not only in the state of Indiana but throughout the Midwest. Students from three different states have attended our Precision Agriculture program. Frequently, we're reaching out to students that may be the first to attend college in their family or from a lower socioeconomic status. A secondary target audience is business and industry active in Precision Agriculture activities. It's critical that our program have deep roots with companies active in hardware and software innovation. Precision Agriculture technologies are advancing at a high rate. These relationships are vital to ensure our academic curriculum is current and lab equipment is consistent with what industry is using today. Our students develop those industry relationships necessary to secure employment after graduation. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Professional Development - Darin Kohlmeyer February 22 and 23 2017 for drone training at ISU; Terre Haute January 26, 2017 Purdue Crop Management workshop at West Lafayette; January 19, 2017 Farm Logs seminar at Champaign, IL; November 29 and 30 2017 Ag Data conference Iowa City, IA December 12 and 13 2017 Ag Tech Expo Indianapolis, IN; December 17, 18, 19 2017 Raven Industries Sioux Falls, South Dakota October 23, 24, 25th 2018 Ag Eagle and Ag leader Kansas and Iowa In addition, it's our goal to increase industry's use of our new Center of Excellence for training of their incumbent workforce. Ivy Tech, as a state institution, constantly seeks opportunities to partner with industry. The benefits are mutual and ultimately benefit our students. OEM's using our facility as a regional training facility allow for increase awareness of our abilities. Awareness provides future enrollment opportunities, additional resources for Ivy Tech's Foundation, etc. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Dissemination of Results Ivy Tech continues to keep our new Precision Agriculture program and facility in the forefront of local media. It's been a focused approach on many facets of the project and our academic programs. Here are serval examples. Sweet Corn Project: Ivy Tech in Terre Haute has partners with Westminster Village, Catholic Charities, Master Gardeners, Ceres Solutions, and Bane-Welker Equipment Company to utilize 6 acres of land for the production of sweet corn. Our precision ag equipment, students, and faculty planted and harvested approximately 150,000 ears that were donated to foodbanks throughout the state. https://www.tribstar.com/news/local_news/ivy-tech-students-plant-harvest-sweet-corn-for-food-banks/article_d51e652f-5861-53a0-af8d-9d93975946a8.html Center of Excellence (COE) building renovation. Senator Joe Donnelly, Ivy Tech President Sue Ellspermann, Terre Haute EDC, and EDA were all present at our COE ribbon cutting ceremony earlier this year. It was an opportunity to recognize key contributors to this project. Included were donors as well as those that developed the vision of precision agriculture community workforce needs well into the future. https://agriculture.einnews.com/article__detail/458109901-ivy-tech-welcomes-donnelly-students-to-precision-agriculture-center-of-excellence?vcode=XIbw The agriculture economic outlook has historically looked more promising that during our capital campaign. In this vein, we've developed more innovative methods for potential support of our COE, Precision Ag programs, and students from the agriculture community. 'Gifts of Grain' provide an opportunity for farmers to allocate a percentage of their crops at their respective elevator and donate the proceeds to Ivy Tech's Foundation. Here's an article that outlines Ivy Tech Terre Haute's first Gift of Garain donor. https://wibqam.com/news/articles/2018/sep/19/lg-farms-to-give-the-gift-of-grain/ Our efforts to promote our program has garnered national exposure. The Ivy Tech Precision Ag Equipment Technology program received national attention by being ranked 13 out of 20 recognized programs throughout the United States. https://www.precisionag.com/service-providers/top-20-two-year-colleges-for-precision-agriculture/#Tinsel/61696/13 What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Executive Summary: Agriculture implement dealers and contract service providers (co-ops) are desperately seeking a skilled Precision Ag workforce. Technological advances in GPS, application control, etc, are enabling crop producers to operate more efficient farms. These advances, typically cultivated by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), place a heavy burden on implement dealers and co-ops to update their equipment and add the skilled workers to maintain, program, and troubleshoot the new equipment.According to the Battelle industry report, the market for Precision Agriculture in the United States in 2014 is estimated to be in excess of $1.5 billion with an annual growth rate from 2013 to 2018 of over 13%. An industry survey completed in 2014 indicated that OJT is the primary source of training for Precision Ag technicians. Ivy Tech listened to industry feedback and added a Precision Agriculture degree path that includes three Technical Certificates (TC) that stack into an Associate of Applied Science degree in Precision Agriculture Equipment Technology to fill the skills gap. The three TCs are Ag Equipment Service Technician (AEST), Precision Ag Technician (PRAT), and Precision Ag Specialist (PRAS). The curricula in each of the three TCs are tailored to specific industry needs. In the 2 years since inception of the degree, we've had (or have) 29 students enrolled. 7 completed the program with 100% all receiving jobs in their field of study. Result Details: A key objective in accomplish these goals was the development and execution of a promotional plan to raise awareness of our new Precision Agriculture program and existing Agriculture degree to recruit students. While the promotion of our Precision Ag program will be an ongoing endeavor, we've successfully recruited 29 students who enrolled in courses. At the time of this report, we've graduated 7 students who collectively acquired 13 academic credentials. 21% (6) of our existing student population are female along with 1 of our 7 graduates. In fact, she was our very first graduate.We also continued to support 89 students in our general Agriculture degree program of which 38 are female students. This change of knowledge not only occurred with perspective students but with industry as well. We've partnered with companies like Ceres Solutions, Helena, Bane-Welker, Raven Industries, AgLeader, CIH, Nutrien Ag Solutions, several local dealerships, etc. These relationships range from donations to our Foundation, access to resources to assist in student learning, utilization of our facilities, etc. Our Precision Ag program has garnered significant publicity regionally and nationally. Prec Ag magazine ranked our new program #13 of the top 20 Prec Ag programs throughout the country. Here are a few examples of the media exposure received from this program. They're from Terre Haute Tribune Star newspaper, PrecisionAg Magazine, Hoosier Ag Today, Farm World Online, etc. http://farmworldonline.com/News/NewsArticle.asp?newsid=23182 https://agriculture.einnews.com/article__detail/458109901-ivy-tech-welcomes-donnelly-students-to-precision-agriculture-center-of-excellence?vcode=XIbw https://www.precisionag.com/industry-news/ivy-tech-opens-center-of-excellence-to-train-tomorrows-precision-ag-service-providers/ https://www.tribstar.com/news/local_news/ivy-tech-building-precision-agriculture-heavy-duty-diesel-labs/article_71db241b-1252-5dd8-b268-d2f44b7b8210.html Since Precision Ag is new to Ivy Tech's program inventory, significant curricula development was needed during this grant period. We modified and/or created 7 different courses. Collaboration occurred with other Ivy Tech campuses as well as incorporating input from industry. This grant provided funding to purchase the following equipment: AgLeader Steering System, AgLeader Display Kit, AgLeader Spreader Control, and a large MagnaSpread granular fertilizer. This equipment was embedded in the lab curricula for PAET 201 GPS Guidance and PAET 202 Application Control to meet course objectives. Providing students with industry like and sized equipment is essential for the career preparedness.In addition to the equipment purchase, student experiences in internships has proven to be invaluable. Our Precision Ag curriculum requires student complete PAET 280 which is the internship class. Many local companies use the internships as job interviews for future placement upon graduation. 100% of our students are obtaining jobs after graduation. In many cases, they're employed prior to completing their degree. Objective reporting: Elevating agriculture instruction so that it is more hands-on and technology-specific. Ivy Tech has leveraged several funding sources to purchase over $280,000 is equipment and tooling to increase lab activities for student involving over 33 different items. These items cover the spectrum of Prec Ag components such as Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). 9 academic courses have been created and/or modified to enhance the student learning experience by adding equipment and hands-on lab activities. Ivy Tech Terre Haute also completed its 26,000 sq/ft Precision Ag Center of Excellence during this grant award. Providing students with more expansive career opportunities because of precision agriculture's technology-specific focus. As stated above, Ivy Tech's Prec Ag program has had 7 graduates as of the time of this report. 100% of those graduates obtained employment in a wide range of capacities from sales positions to returning to the family farm. Our growing industry partnerships are expanding our inventory of potential employers of our graduates. Expanding a diverse and talented student body's knowledge of real-world solutions to agriculture problems by requiring co-op/internship experiences. All students enrolled in Ivy Tech's Precision Ag program are required to complete an Internship. The most obvious intent is to develop student's technical skills in their area of study. Internships provide an opportunity for interpersonal skill development as well. Our process includes a learning contract, application, Program Chair site visit form, and student evaluation form. The hiring company evaluates our student in over 11 categories like judgement, quality or work, dependability, academic preparedness, etc. Students receive a grade for PAET 280 (Internship course) based on these evaluations. Total expected student impact during entire grant period Expected Number Actual Number Total number of students to be directly supported by grant (i.e., stipends) 20 29 Number of underrepresented students to be supported during the grant period (i.e., stipends) 5 0 Number of women students to be supported during the grant period (i.e., stipends) 5 6 Number of students who will complete internships and other experiential learning during the grant period 20 29 Number of students who will complete international experiences during the grant period 0 0 Other relevant Impacts . . . 0 0 Total expected faculty impact during entire grant period Expected Number Actual Number Number of faculty attending professional development: sabbaticals, workshops, conferences, etc. 1 1 Number of sabbaticals, workshops, conferences to be attended by faculty 1 7 Other relevant Impacts . . . 0 0 Total expected overall impact during entire grant period Expected Number Actual Number Number of products to be developed through grant funds (i.e., curricula, academic programs, recruitment/retention programs, materials, experiential learning opportunities) 1 4 Number of collaborations to be developed between institutions 1 10 Number of individuals who indirectly will benefit from the projects (i.e., using the curriculum/instrumentation, enrolled in the program, recruited or retained) 20 29 Number of projects that will measure changes in student learning or engagement 1 1 Other relevant Impacts . . . 0 0
Publications
|
Progress 09/01/15 to 08/31/16
Outputs
Target Audience:We have enrolled approximately 15 students in classes that utilize precision agriculture learning objectives. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?We have had one class, Crop Machinery and Equipment, that has directly provided training in precision ag to approximately 15 students. These students were involved in converting planting equipment and a tractor to auto-guidance and variable rate technology. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Our goal is to offer more precision ag - related classes and recruit more students. We are currently teaching one summer class, Ag Applications of GIS and have 3 more offered in the fall semester.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
During this reporting period, we were successful in accomplishing most of our goals. Over the course of the grant, we anticipated having 20 students, and have already had approximately 15 enrolled in Precision Ag - related classes. During this time, none of the students were under-represented or women. So far, none of the students have completed internships. We have one full-time, dedicated faculty member who has attended numerous classes, workshops and conferences during the reporting period. Also, during the reporting period, we have significantly improved the curriculum, teaching materials and lab technology for the program. Numerous collaborations havebeen established with ag equipment dealers, ag retailers and prcision ag manufacturers. We are currently seeking a collaboration with Indiana State University and their Unmanned Systems program.
Publications
|