Progress 11/01/23 to 10/31/24
Outputs
Target Audience:The purpose of Next Generation Agriculture Science is to serve California Agriscience teachers and stakeholders among over 350 School-Based Agriculture Education programs in the state. There is a mismatch of credentialed agriculture teachers' preparedness to integrate science standards. While nearly half of all CA ag educators teach an agriscience course that meets state standards and/or college entrance requirements, agriscience teachers have been left to create their own unique approaches and these thwart consistent, uniform achievement of intended student outcomes throughout California. This project, in effect, will support the agriscience knowledge and skill development of students enrolled in California agriculture education where 47% are in the Agriscience pathway, of which 36.5% are Hispanic and 19% are other minorities (California Agriculture Education Outlook, 2019). The grant project has sparked curriculum development and organization efforts, professional development events, industry experiences, and scholarships all to support teachers in building their science instruction human-capital. Changes/Problems:Changes in leadership. Grant management has changed over the past year. Dr. Rosco Vaughn retired and has passed on. Dr. Nicole Ray who was formerly at CSU, Fresno has moved to California Polytechnic, SLO. Dr. Dr. Avery Culbertson who was formerly at CSU, Fresno has taken a position at Texas A&M University. NGAS is led by Dr. Susan Pheasant of CSU, Frsno and Dr. Nicole Ray with Jonathan Moules and Cameron Standridge transitioned to a different format of roles as planned for at the beginning of the grant (from graduate students to consultants). It is imperative to point out that Moules and Standridge were appointed as key personnel of the grant since its inception and have continued grant efforts despite the transitions of leadership over the grant's life. The proposed project extension and budget revision present strategic adjustments aimed at enhancing overall impact. The allocation of a portion of the grant funds to California State University, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo signifies a valuable effort to leverage faculty expertise and existing university resources to advance project objectives. Reallocation of funds to improve the online Phenomena Foundations in Agriscience course is particularly promising. Offering stipends to teachers for the development of additional phenomena aims to enrich the educational content available to educators and students. Additionally, the initiative to create stipend opportunities for participants who engage in field study experiences or agriculture industry phenomena bootcamps demonstrates a commitment to fostering meaningful connections between educators and the agricultural industry. This approach emphasizes practical applications and aligns well with the goals of enhancing science education through real-world relevance. These modifications reflect a thoughtful strategy for maximizing the effectiveness of the grant project while addressing key educational needs within the agriscience field What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided??Multiple opportunities for training and professional learning were provided to teachers in Year 3. The project continued the agriscience externships, resurrecting an unmet need of teachers Twelve teachers took part in 40 hour externship experiences with an agriculture company or agriculture-related government agency totaling thirty externships since the beginning of the grant. Host sites were paired with teachers according to teacher needs and goals. Teacher submitted 5E structured lesson plans with agricultural phenomena, timesheets, written reflections, and any supplemental lesson resources. These deliverables were required of teachers after completing the externship in order to receive a stipend and be eligible for Continuing Education Credits. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?? California agriscience teachers benefit significantly from the California Agricultural Teachers Association (CATA), which serves as a critical conduit for sharing project outcomes aimed at improving teaching effectiveness. CATA's structure, comprising six regions managed by supervisors, facilitates recruitment for curriculum development events and promotes opportunities such as externships and scholarships. CATA's grassroots structure fosters communication among educators at the school, town, county, regional, state levels, ensuring effective dissemination of information. Regional representatives play a vital role in marketing project initiatives, including externships and scholarships, at local meetings. The grant project team further promoted their research efforts through presentations at the American Association of Agricultural Educators (AAAE) Western Region conference and AAAE National Conference, showcasing innovative approaches such as externship initiatives and phenomena-based instruction in agriscience classrooms. The STEAM in Agriculture site has also allowed for digital housing for all grant opportunities and activities including the Phenomena Bank for teachers to search for phenomena that best fit their course content. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals??The grant timeline has been extended for one additional year with a budget revision to refocus the project's activities towards phenomena-based experiences, curriculum, and industry connections. Objective 1. The team is set and satisfied with the direction of the Phenomena Database/Bank. The goal for the extended period is to increase the number of phenomena and develop a sustainable method of collecting more phenomena. This will be accomplished by the Phenomenon Foundations in Agriscience online course in which teachers will submit a unique phenomena as their capstone project before completing the course or retrieving Continuing Education Credits. Objective 2. During the workshop held at the 2024 CATA summer conference, participating teachers expressed a need to have an annual, comprehensive, multi-day agriscience conference or "bootcamp" similar to other agricultural course pathway teachers (i.e. agricultural mechanics). A bootcamp will be planned and implemented in the 2025 CATA conference. The online course that is currently being pilot will be another avenue for teacher professional development to occur. The online course will be one of the sustainability pieces of the grant that will live on for teachers to continue their growth and development in phenomena-based instruction. Once all piloting actions have been completed, the course will be open for teachers in and out of the realm of agriscience education to build their NGSS competency. Objective 3. Summer externships will also continue using the same logistical planning process of beginning five months prior to the externship beginning. The networking, recruiting, and onboarding of company host sites is an extensive process. Matching teacher needs with companies that are both willing and able to host a teacher, and can provide an experience that the teacher will find beneficial is not an easy feat. Additional personnel assists with the management of the externship program. High school principals, counselors, and teachers will also be reached during this through an agriculture phenomena industry tour and a speaker panel. Feedback from attendees will measure their awareness of agriculture science pathways. Objective 4. Research efforts are to encompass a teachers' intention and competency of using agricultural phenomena pre and post completing the Phenomenon Foundations in Agriscience online course with hopes of showcasing the course and its effectiveness at future AAAE conferences through posters and presentations. Findings will assist the NGAS team in refining the course to meet teacher needs.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective 1. The grant project realigned its curriculum focus to ensure a plethora of agriculturally related phenomena published on the SquareSpace site. Anecdotal evidence suggests that agriscience teachers view accessibility to agriculture pheoneman as a barrier into following Next Generation Science Standards and its best pedagogical practices. The STEAM in Agriculture site (https://steaminagriculture.squarespace.com/), an upgrade compared to the Google Site in Y2, now houses a Phenomena Database/Bank that teachers can search for agricultural phenomena that relate back to their biology or chemistry classroom content. The database currently contains forty-five different phenomena ranging from topics related to food processing to plant science and wildlife management. Objective 2. The new STEAM in Agriculture site has allowed the grant team to market project activities regarding professional learning opportunities such as the externship, the phenomena database, and opportunities for teachers to receive Continuing Education Units (CEUs). Through the assistance of a California agriculture university professor, a workshop was held at the California Agricultural Teachers Association 2024 summer conference to evaluate the current state of agriscience education in which over thirty teachers participated. The highlight of this year was the creation of an online course that will outlive the lifetime of the grant. The four modules (What is phenomenon?; Why should I use phenomena with my students?; What makes a quality phenomena?; Capstone Project - Developing a phenomena?) allow teachers to build not only their NGSS competency but also assist their students by incorporating Agriculture, Food, and Related Science topics back into their hard science courses such as biology, chemistry, and physics. The course itself is built to model best teaching practices recommended by NGSS and the National Science Foundation. Using a 5E (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate) structure in each module, participants are able to repeatedly experience what their own teaching methods should reflect. Teachers are eligible to receive CEU credits after completing. Course is being piloted with twenty participants with full rollout to be in early 2025. Y3 of the grant also brought on two pre-service, graduate students that were fulfilling their graduate degree requirements through the grant. As the second objective of the grant is to develop the pedagogical skills of such students, these graduate students were engaged in creating and organizing phenomena as well as conducting research on agriscience education, externship effectiveness, and other grant efforts. Objective 3. Twelve teachers hosted at twelve agricultural companies and government agencies were involved in a 40 hours externship program that increased their awareness of agriscience career pathways. This professional learning experience also assisted teachers in connecting science content learned in the classroom with agriculture industry practices. Deliverables of the externship program included a timesheet and an industry and NGSS-based lesson plans and phenomena using the 5E lesson planning method (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate). Phenomena created by externs will be evaluated using the Phenomena Evaluation Tool. Phenomena that meet the criteria are added to the Phenomena Database housed on the SquareSpace site. The NGAS grant reimbursed teachers if they chose to purchase CEUs for completing the externship. Twelve total CEUs were granted. Objective 4. The project team has produced two research conference posters within the last grant year, adding to the body of work that this grant has produced since its inception. With the online phenomenon course operating, further research will explore teachers' capacity of employing phenomena into their classroom and their intent to do so.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Moules, J., Ray, N., Standridge, C., Vanscoy, S., Culbertson, A., Strong, R. (2024 May). Agriscience Teacher Externship Perceptions and Intentions. [Poster Presentation]. American Association of Agricultural Educators Conference, Manhattan, Kansas.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Linderholm, K. Ray, N., Standridge, C., Vanscoy, S., Culbertson, A. Moules, J. (2024 May). Are We Hitting Our Target? An Instrument of Evaluation for Agriscience Phenomena. [Poster Presentation]. American Association of Agricultural Educators Conference, Manhattan, Kansas.
- Type:
Websites
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
https://steaminagriculture.squarespace.com/
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Progress 11/01/22 to 10/31/23
Outputs
Target Audience:The purpose of Next Generation Agriculture Science is to serve California Agriscience teachers and stakeholders among over 350 School-Based Agriculture Education programs in the state. There is a mismatch of credentialed agriculture teachers' preparedness to integrate science standards. While nearly half of all CA ag educators teach an agriscience course that meets state standards and/or college entrance requirements, agriscience teachers have been left to create their own unique approaches and these thwart consistent, uniform achievement of intended student outcomes throughout California. This project, in effect, will support the agriscience knowledge and skill development of students enrolled in California agriculture education where 47% are in the Agriscience pathway, of which 36.5% are Hispanic and 19% are other minorities (California Agriculture Education Outlook, 2019). The grant project has sparked curriculum development and organization efforts, professional development events, industry experiences, and scholarships all to support teachers in building their science instruction human-capital Changes/Problems:Change 1. The first progress report highlighted a change of how the lab manuals were going to be produced on a digital format on Google Sheets. "Resource menus" were the new objective, with the same amount of lesson plans and supplementary resources stated in the grant application. The grant team is currently developing a database through the Google Looker Studio platform to better organize and market the curriculum resources. Change 2. Dr. Susan Pheasant, Principal Investigator, has resigned as PI for the third grant year due to increasing priorities and responsibilities across other projects. Dr. Avery Culbertson, an associate agriculture communication and leadership professor at California State University, Fresno will be replacing Dr. Pheasant. Change 3. Reaching high school administrators and counselors has been a challenge. While the initial goal was to incorporate grant deliverables and activities into pre-existing events hosted by the California Agriculture Teachers Association at the country level, it has proven to be difficult. The grant project team is creating its own program to target administrators. An agriscience phenomena industry tour will be sponsored and created by the grant team in which administrators would tour agriculture companies and agencies that reflect the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and concepts used in agriscience classes (biology, chemistry, and advanced agriscience). The tour would effectively have the same benefit of attending the Pathway Awareness Nights previously described during project initiation and application. Change 4. During the development of lab manuals, then digital resource menus, and now a phenomena database, and hosting a number of professional learning workshops on NGSS and phenomena-based learning, the grant team has found a greater need in the agriculture education literature that highlights the nexus of STEM and agriculture science. Research during the final year of the grant will focus on the value and impact of agriscience externships on teachers' instructional competence. In addition, the grant team will conduct a meta-analysis on the presence of NGSS and phenomena-based learning in high school agriscience education with the goal of opening a novel research focus in the agriculture education research community and highlight the power of using such instructional methods in agriscience classrooms What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Multiple opportunities for training and professional learning were provided to teachers in Year 2. The project continued the agriscience teacher externships, a program that dwindled prior the Next Generation Agriculture Science's reinstatement of the program in the summer of 2022 and again in 2023. Seventeen teachers took part in a 40 hour externship experience with an agriculture company or agency. Host sites were paired with teachers according to teacher wants and goals. A number of different deliverables were required of teachers after completing the externship in order to receive a stipend and be eligible for Continuing Education Credits. Professional development workshops were held at various locations over the year. The University of California, Davis FFA Field Day, the California Agriculture Teacher Association AgriSkills, and the California Agriculture Teacher Association Conference. Four workshops were put on relating to agriscience education, Next Generation Science Standards, using phenomena-based lessons, and the like. Over seventy teachers participated across the four workshops. Attending teacher trainings and conferences can be of substantial cost to teachers. This project provided a number of scholarship opportunities for agriscience teachers to attend professional development events throughout the state and nation. In alignment with the grant's objectives, teachers were required to attend trainings and events related to agriscience education, science inquiry, agriscience research, or the like. Four teachers were provided scholarships How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?A common practice for the dissemination of information in the realm of California agriscience teachers is through in-person events and electronic information provided by the California Agriculture Teachers Association (CATA). The grassroots structure of CATA allows for teachers to communicate at the school, town, county, regional, state, and national level. All communication regarding grant activities were done with the assistance of the county, regional, and state level supervisors. Teacher representatives of each region were recruited to market products of the project at regional agriculture teacher meetings. The professional development also served as a platform to market grant activities. The Agriscience Resource Menus, Google Site, externship, scholarships, and other grant opportunities were the main activities marketed. The grant project team also promoted the research efforts by traveling to the Western Region American Association of Agricultural Educators conference. Two innovative posters were submitted, accepted, and presented at the conference highlighting the externship efforts and phenomena-based instruction in agriscience classrooms What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Objective 1. Quality design, structure, and marketing are the next steps to accomplishing the goals of the first objective. The grant team is currently creating an online database of curriculum resources and agriscience phenomena to form a "phenomena bank" using Google Looker Studio platform; reminiscent of the phenomena bank created by the Georgia Science Teacher Association, an open source curriculum search site. The database created will be embedded into a high quality website platform for perpetuity. Both the Google Looker and the website have greater evaluation and analytic capabilities beyond the "engagement" that the Bitly links provided, and henceforth real-time use of the database and website will be captured. The Looker Studio platform will also provide a means for teachers to provide informal feedback on resources through a rating system of each individual science phenomena. Objective 2. Professional learning workshops will continue as they have been. The next grant year will comprise the final group of teacher trainers. Workshops are to be presented at regional, state, and national levels by California agriscience teachers. In addition, a self-guided module of agriscience phenomena-based learning is in development for agriscience teachers. Conference travel scholarships and Continuing Education Unit scholarships will be completed and provided to teachers that attend agriscience trainings. Objective 3. Summer agriscience teacher externships will also continue, using the same processes. The planning of the externship program and the communication between host sites and teachers is to begin in January 2024, five months in advance of the start date of the summer experience. Additional personnel will assist with the management of the externship program due to its grand logistical responsibilities. Administrators and counselors will also be reached during the third year through an agriculture phenomena industry tour and a speaker panel. Feedback from attendees will measure their awareness of agriculture science pathways. Objective 4. Research efforts are to encompass a content analysis of journal articles referencing phenomena-based learning in agriscience classrooms with the intent of potentially finding a research gap in agriculture education literature
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Since the implementation of Next Generation Science Standards, agriculture science classes and teachers have struggled to integrate hard science concepts into high school agricultural studies. Agriculture education promotes college and career readiness, however agriscience education specifically has yet to keep up with the academic demands of state and national standards. Despite agriculture teachers' efforts in creating agriculture and NGSS tied lessons since the conception of new agriscience courses in the early 2010s, curriculum resources have become disorganized, incohesive, and lack consistent agricultural connection. The grant project is to directly benefit California agriscience teachers who teach UCCI agriscience courses: Biology and Sustainable Agriculture, Chemistry and Agriscience, and Advanced Interdisciplinary Science for Sustainable Agriculture. Among the 350 agriculture high school programs within the state of California, nearly 50% of agriculture teachers teach a UCCI course (California Agricultural Education Outlook, 2019). In addition, 40,000 students, within those programs, are enrolled in those same courses. All objectives of the project are meant to directly and indirectly support teachers in their knowledge and skill development of the agriscience industry and agriscience instruction Objective 1. The curriculum menus created in Year 1 of the project contained over 350 labs, activities, and supplementary materials for agriscience teachers in California. Though the curriculum menus were developed through an electronic medium, access, dissemination, and evaluation of adoption of curriculum resources was the next hurdle to overcome leading into Year 2. The curriculum resources were included in the California Agriculture Education Landing Page and marketed through the California Ag Education Discussion Lab Facebook Page. To increase dissemination and organization of all grant activities including curriculum menus, a free Google Site was created to house all materials. Google as well as the use of Bitly allowed for the measurement of internet traffic and "engagements." The Google Site and Bitly links collected the following summative analyses of online traffic: Google Site Engagements - 100; Teacher Externships - 500; Grant Program Summary - 120; Curriculum Menus - 300. Objective 2. Both the curriculum menus and the Google Site were marketed through electronic mail as well as professional learning workshops throughout the state of California. The California Agriculture Teachers Association (CATA) is the representative body of all California agriculture teachers and serves as the platform in which most agriculture teachers receive their professional learning. Through the assistance of three high school agriscience teachers and one university professor, four professional learning workshops were hosted to teachers at pre-existing agriculture education events. Over seventy participants joined the workshops cumulatively. Workshops consisted of interpreting and using Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), creating and finding agricultural phenomena in agriscience courses, and effective science lesson and unit planning. Objective 3. Seventeen teachers hosted at seventeen agricultural companies and government agencies were involved in a 40 hours externship program that increased their awareness of agriscience career pathways. This professional learning experience also assisted teachers in connecting science content learned in the classroom with agriculture industry practices. Deliverables of the externship program included a timesheet and an industry and NGSS-based lesson plan using the 5E lesson planning method (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate). Objective 4. Intensive research efforts of the grant project are currently being initiated. Research questions to be addressed will revolve around the effectiveness of the teacher externships on teachers' self-efficacy of using agriscience phenomena and incorporating the five AFRI priorities into their instruction. In addition, a meta analysis of the use of phenomena-based instruction in agriscience education will also be completed.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Ray, N., Moules, J., Standridge, C., Linderholm, K., Vanscoy, S., & Pheasant., S. (2023 October). Establishing a Statewide Agriscience Teacher Externship Program [Poster Presentation]. Western Region American Association of Agricultural Educators Conference, Logan, Utah.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Ray, N., Moules, J., Standridge, C., Linderholm, K., Vanscoy, S., & Pheasant., S. (2023 October). How phenomenal are we at agriscience phenomenon? An Instrument for Reflection on Phenomenon Based Instruction in Agriscience [Poster Presentation]. Western Region American Association of Agricultural Educators Conference, Logan, Utah.
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Progress 11/01/21 to 10/31/22
Outputs
Target Audience:The purpose of Next Generation Agriculture Science is to directly serve California Agriscience teachers and stakeholders among the 350 School-Based Agriculture Education programs in the state. There is a mismatch of credentialed agriculture teachers' preparedness to integrate science standards. While nearly half of all CA ag educators teach an agriscience course that meets state standards and/or college entrance requirements, agriscience teachers have been left to create their own unique approaches and these thwart consistent, uniform achievement of intended student outcomes throughout CA. This in effect, will support the agriscience knowledge and skill development of students enrolled in California agriculture education where 47% are in the Agriscience pathway, of which 36.5% are Hispanic and 19% are other minorities (California Agriculture Education Outlook, 2019). The grant project has sparked curriculum development and organization efforts, professional development events, industry experiences, and scholarships all to support teachers in building their science instruction human-capital. Changes/Problems:Change 1. During the curriculum development session involving experienced agriscience teachers, the recommendation was made and adopted to move away from the concept of producing a laboratory manual to creating resource menus. Teachers determined that lab manuals were too restrictive and did not encompass necessary activities to incorporate NGSS and 3-Dimensional learning such as phenomena-based explorations and Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs). Agriscience teachers suggested a resource menu as a model to allow teachers to select phenomena, activities, or labs they wanted to include. Teachers emphasized the flexibility of this resource would increase its adoption by other teachers. Change 2. Due to lingering COVID-19 impacts in early 2022, many agriscience teachers had to cancel at the last minute to attend the in-person curriculum development session. This reduced the expenditures of the entire session due to less hotel, meal, travel, and stipend costs. Therefore, extra funds were used to support teacher asynchronous work on developing more phenomena, activities, or labs to include in the Agriscience Resource Menus. This method of curriculum development was not present in the original plan but proved to be useful in eliciting high-quality materials. Change 3. Dr. Rosco Vaughn, Principal Investigator, decided to retire after 50 years of service in agricultural education. Dr. Nicole Ray, teacher educator at Fresno State and statewide leader in agriscience curriculum and teacher professional development took ownership of principal investigator. Dr. Ray will continue to serve in an advisory capacity to the Project Co-Directors Cameron Standridge and Jonathan Moules. Change 4. Agricultural Pathways Awareness Nights were not conducted in year 1 of the project. The project began in November 2021, which had already passed the planning phase of most previously established APA nights. Therefore, the NGAS team decided to postpone the implementation of APA nights till the next fall to facilitate better timing and recruitment of additional host counties. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Two major opportunities for development were initiated by the project and will continue expanding throughout the next couple of years. Next Generation Agriculture Science reintroduced agriscience teacher externships back into California agriculture education. This type of industry opportunity has been on a hiatus for many years but restructured to meet the needs of teachers. Over the summer of 2022, five agriscience teachers were paired with five different agricultural companies/agencies to complete industry and science-focused externships. Teachers were scattered across the state to invest forty hours of time at their externship placement. At the completion of the externship, teachers submitted a one-page reflection about their experience and a lesson plan that tied to NGSS and skills or knowledge gained at the externship. Agriscience teacher professional development continued through the summer California Agriculture Teachers Association conference. Three agriscience workshops were facilitated by four highly qualified high school teachers. Topics covered included agriculture chemistry instruction, interpreting and implementing NGSS into agriculture classrooms, and reviewing the structure of the capstone agriscience UCCI course, accumulating to four hours of professional development. Over sixty teachers participated in these workshops. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? California agriscience teachers are well connected through the professional organization California Agricultural Teachers Association (CATA). The CATA has been an integral partner in disseminating the results of this project to agriscience teachers looking to improve their teaching efficacy. CATA has six regions throughout California, which are managed by regional supervisors. These individuals were used to recruit agriscience teachers to curriculum development events and to advertise teacher externships and scholarships. Furthermore, the CATA State Conference was used as the official launch for the Agriscience Resource Menus. Project Directors met with statewide members of the curriculum committee at the conference to discuss current progress and future work to be accomplished. Committee members agriscience teachers and other stakeholders including regional supervisors, and teacher educators. Additionally, three workshops were sponsored by NGAS to deliver agriscience-related professionals development workshops at the State CATA conference. Each of these workshops advertised the Agriscience Resource Menus as high quality resources for agriscience teachers to adopt into their curriculum. Lastly, the Agriscience Resource Menus were presented as an innovative idea at the Western Region American Association of Agricultural Educators. The first fraft of Resource Menus have also been digitally published on the California Agricultural Teacher Landing Page in addition to having sharable access through Google Folders. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Objective 1. The next reporting period will include additional steps to enhance agriscience teacher professional development in California. This includes an additional curriculum development session to facilitate cooperative learning between educators in creating key assignments to address NGSS and agricultural standards. NGAS will continue to contract with experience agriscience teachers to host innovative workshops at key CATA professional development conferences and meetings. Additionally, there is potential to host frequent online "office hours" for agriscience teachers to connect and discuss curriculum resources, strategies, and instructional techniques with mentor agriscience teachers. Objective 2. Agriscience curriculum relating to Sustainable Agricultural Biology, Chemistry and Agriscience, and Advanced Interdisciplinary Science for Sustainable Agriculture courses will continue to be developed by experienced agriscience teachers in a two day session. Emphasis will be paid to linking agriscience phenomena throughout the hands-on experiences and assessments in the course. Next, the curriculum will be utilized and tested by agriscience teachers in practice. Feedback from agriscience teachers in each course and a variety of years of experience will be used to guide the revising and editing of the Agriscience Resource Menus. Objective 3. The agriscience teacher externship program will be expanded to include additional participants. Partnership with California Agricultural Leadership Council will continue to ensure participants are placed with high quality industry partners to facilitate impactful externships. Agricultural Pathway Awareness (APA) nights will be hosted in various counties in California. The events will be hosted by local level CATA groups to educate school counselors and administrators on the benefits of student involvement in agriscience focused educational pathways. Objective 4. As continued teacher professional development experience take place (curriculum usage, CATA workshops, online "office hour" collaborations, externships) agriscience teacher self-efficacy will be measured. Confidence in teaching science and the AFRI priorities will be specifically measured. Curriculum pilot schools will be used to measure student change in agricultural knowledge and perceptions from exposure to the NGSS-aligned lessons. It is planned to use an verified agricultural literacy survey instrument to assess students since it encompasses the AFRI priority areas and National Agricultural Literacy Outcomes
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Since the implementation of Next Generation Science Standards, agriculture science classes and teachers have struggled to integrate hard science concepts into high school agricultural studies. Agriculture education promotes college and career readiness, however agriscience education specifically has yet to keep up with the academic demands of state and national standards. Despite agriculture teachers' efforts in creating agriculture and NGSS-tied lessons since the conception of UCCI, curriculum resources have become disorganized, incohesive, and lack consistent agricultural connection. The grant project is to directly benefit California agriscience teachers who teach UCCI agriscience courses: Biology and Sustainable Agriculture, Chemistry and Agriscience, and Advanced Interdisciplinary Science for Sustainable Agriculture. Among the 350 agriculture high school programs within the state of California, nearly 50% of agriculture teachers teach a UCCI course (California Agricultural Education Outlook, 2019). In addition, 40,000 students, within those programs, are enrolled in those same courses. All objectives of the project are meant to, directly and indirectly, support teachers in their knowledge and skill development of the agriscience industry and agriscience instruction Objective 1. Support for agriscience teachers began in January of 2022 by bringing together over twenty agriscience teachers to Fresno State for a three-day curriculum development event. With the joint support of agriculture science subject matter experts, teachers were grouped into three groups respective to the UCCI courses. Curricula vetting and formatting goals were met with post-event goals created to continue finding and creating resources. Teachers were hired over the course of spring months to develop certain units of instruction that were yet to be agriculturally integrated. Among the three different course menus, over fifty different phenomena, 200+ labs/activities, and 150+ supplementary materials were collected as of October 2022. Objective 2. The current first draft of curricula was marketed and adopted through a "soft pilot" over the summer months. The California Agriculture Teachers Association (CATA) was critical in reaching to all agriscience teachers. During the summer CATA conference, three professional development agriscience teacher workshops were facilitated to over sixty participants. Topics ranged from agriscience chemistry instruction to interpreting NGSS within the context of agriculture. In addition, the grant project directors officially opened up the CATA Curriculum Committee to introduce the entirety of the project and specifically the curriculum menus. The menus are now housed on the California Agriculture Education Landing Page which contains various curriculum resources for teachers. There is potential for the curriculum to be moved to a different digital location in order to have a broader reach. Objective 3. Fundamentally, the grant project is to increase the awareness of agriscience careers and pathways to teachers, students, and other stakeholders. In order for teachers to have direct experience in the agriscience industry, five agriscience teachers completed a 40-hour externship experience with five different agricultural companies or agencies. Teachers were exposed to the applicable nature of high school science alongside employees, administrative personnel, and company executives. At the completion of the externship, teachers submitted a one-page reflection regarding their experience (to be analyzed for future qualitative research) and an industry-based and NGSS-tied lesson plan. Objective 4. Measuring teacher self-efficacy and its effect on the AFRI areas will begin in early 2023 as the three curriculum menus will be piloted officially with participating agriculture education programs. Teachers participating in a series of grant-sponsored professional development workshops will potentially be measured using a pre/post self-efficacy scale. To address the gap in agriscience teacher knowledge, skill, and self-efficacy, these various opportunities were initiated through the efforts of the project directors and principal investigators directly impacting over 100 teachers and indirectly supporting more.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Standridge, C., Moules, J., Vaugh, R., & Pheasant., S. 2022. (2022, September 19-21). Creating Instruction Resources: Agriscience Menus [Poster Presentation]. Western Region American Association of Agricultural Educators Conference, Las Cruces, New Mexico. http://aaaeonline.org/resources/Documents/Western%20Region/2022meeting/2022_WAAAE_Poster_Proceedings091722.pdf
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