Progress 06/15/23 to 06/14/24
Outputs
Target Audience:Collaboratively hosted by Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi and Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Corpus Christi, this AgTech REEU project aims to enhance the region's future workforce in next-generation agriculture through offering undergraduate research and extension experiences in innovative agriculture technologies to support sustainable agricultural efforts. This is a five-year program. Each year, we expect to recruit eight undergraduate students, especially Hispanics, women, and community colleges, to participate in our 25-week program (nine weeks in spring, eight weeks in summer, and eight weeks in fall) from diverse backgrounds in STEM and agriculture. We organize weekly webinars online in Spring and invite guest speakers from industry and consulting firms to cover various topics in agriculture and the use of innovative technologies in agriculture. During the eight weeks of the in-person summer program, we offer short courses, hands-on activities, and team-based project-focused research activities. In the Fall semester, students mainly focus on finalizing the research projects conducted in the fall and sharing the research results at conferences, in addition to attending a series of professional development seminars virtually. The goal is to help students acquire knowledge, skills, and abilities (SKAs) to prepare students for the future intelligent agriculture workforce and graduate study. Global spending on innovative agricultural technologies is projected to triple in the near future. However, the workforce lacks opportunities for science-based training and experience in this area. During this reporting period, June 14, 2023 - June 13, 2024, we undertook a rigorous selection and recruitment process to form the first cohort for our REEU program, which met our goal. We selected and recruited eight undergraduate students, three of whom were male, three were female, and two did not share their information in their applications. Six of the eight students were from underrepresented minorities, including four Hispanics, one Black or African American, and one American Indian or Alaska Native. Further, of the eight students, two were from community colleges, Del Mar College and Austin College. Regarding students' background, four students were from Computer Science, three were from Agriculture, and one was from environmental science with a minor in spatial science. These eight students were from a diverse background, which is a uniqueness and beauty of our program, but it also presents a challenge, which will be described in a later section. In terms of the origins of students, we had one from our campus, and the rest of the seven were from outside of our campus, which met our goal as this program aimed to provide research and extension experiences to students beyond our campus, particularly those with fewer and more limited resources. Of the eight students, seven were from Texas, and only one was from outside of Texas (North Carolina). We targeted this as our program focused on students from Texas, mainly south Texas. We hope to contribute to the future workforce for next-generation agriculture in Texas. Recruitment efforts: We have developed recruitment materials and used such materials to recruit students for our program successfully. The links to the primary material materials include: Our AgTech REEU webpage: reeu.tamucc.edu AgTech REEU flyer: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rGrYfKqs4MbT4x_QbTdFdDFDwwLakFYw/view?pli=1 AgTech program offers tech skills, smart-farming experience - AgriLife Today (tamu.edu); https://agrilifetoday.tamu.edu/2023/10/18/agtech-opportunity-to-gain-tech-skills-smart-farming-experience-for-undergraduate-students/ Students to gain smart farming experience thanks to new AgTech REEU program -- Conrad Blucher Institute, https://www.conradblucherinstitute.org/news/agtech-reeu We have also created a list of contacts for the educational programs offered at Texas universities and community colleges. The list contains academic advisors and department chairs from more than 100 programs we targeted to recruit students, including agriculture, computer science, engineering, spatial science, and environmental science. We sent them our flyer and program info twice, at the end of November and the beginning of January, to ask them to share with their students. We also did about ten classroom visits on campus and the campus from our partners, including Del Mar College and Texas A&M University at Kingsville. We shared our AgTech REEU program with students from students from diverse backgrounds. With all the efforts we put in, we have received 25 complete applications. Half of them were females, and half were males, excluding those who preferred not to provide the info. Seven were not Hispanic or Latino; the rest (eighteen) were Hispanics. Students were from different backgrounds, including agricultural science, animal science, plant science, computer science, computer engineering, GIS, environmental science, mechanical engineering, etc. Our team met a couple of times to discuss and screen the applications. Finally, we selected eight students to fill the first cohort, Cohort-One. As described in the previous paragraph, we have met our goal. Our third-party external evaluator, Cosgrove & Associates (C&A), has completed the first-year evaluation using both formative and summative methods. They had several meetings with students in person or online. According to the feedback from students, students appear to have reacted well to the information highlighted in the recruitment materials. All students agreed that hands-on, team-basedlearning & research experience related to IoTs, UAS, and geospatial analytics in agriculture is very important and motivated them to apply. In our recruitment information, we also highlighted other opportunities and benefits, for example, developing their research interest associated with next-generation agricultural-related technologies, providing extensive extension experience & opportunities to work and interact with county extension agents and local producers, and having opportunities to work with and learn from experienced professionals, and providing travel support to Texas A&M Corpus Christi, meal allowance and on-campus housing, and a weekly stipends. These opportunities and benefits also motivated students to apply. Changes/Problems:In our original proposal, we planned to launch the Year One program in Spring 2023, with students joining us on campus in the summer of 2023. However, due to a delay in receiving our award notification, the project officially started on June 13, 2023. We revised our schedule accordingly and successfully achieved all Year One objectives. Our grant team has undergone some changes. Dr. Pan, who was a co-PI, left the university. Fortunately, Dr. Soohkak stepped in as his replacement. We submitted a request to the REEU program to update the co-PI role, which was approved. We revised our program schedule due to recruitment challenges. But we successfully accomplished all the goals set for Year One. Our primary goal for each year of the AgTech REEU program is to recruit eight students, with a focus on females and underrepresented minorities from diverse backgrounds (STEM and agriculture), to participate in training, research, and extension activities related to innovative agriculture technologies. Recruitment was a significant challenge. We initially planned to recruit eight students to form Cohort One by the end of Fall 2024 and launched the Spring program in February 2024. As planned, we built our program webpage (reeu.tamucc.edu), created a flyer, and distributed our recruitment materials through various channels such as local news social media, and worked with our external partners. However, by the end of November 2023, the results were not as expected. We had to extend the application deadline to the end of January. In response, we discussed and revisited our recruitment strategy and implemented two new methods: 1) Expanding our external network: We developed a comprehensive list of academic contacts, including academic advisors, department chairs, and contact persons, in agriculture, computer science, spatial science, and engineering at universities and community colleges across Texas. We reached out to them twice (in December and January), requesting them share information about our program with their students. 2) Classroom visits. In collaboration with our external partners, we conducted in-person visits to classrooms at TAMUCC, Del Mar Community College, and TAMU-Kingsville. Thanks to these additional efforts, we successfully recruited eight students to form Cohort One, as anticipated. Of these eight students, six were from underrepresented minorities, including four Hispanic, one Native American, and one Black American student. Additionally, three of the students were females. They represented diverse backgrounds: four in computer sciences, three in agriculture, and one in environmental/spatial science. Two of the students came from community colleges. The majority (seven) students were from universities and colleges across Texas. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?In Spring 2024, our AgTech REEU program provided six webinars to students from diverse backgrounds in agriculture, computer science, spatial science, and environmental science. These topics include 1) general agronomy and crop production; 2) the Physiological aspect of crop growth and development; 3) UAS-based wildfire monitoring; 4) the Potential of Big Data in Agriculture; 5) theUse of sensors and telemetry in agriculture data collection; and 6) ESRI: GIS in Agriculture. In Summer 2024 between May 20 - June 13, our AgTech REEU program provided Cohort-One with 10-day short courses, including lectures and hands-on activities covering the topics in IoTs, UAV, and geospatial science in agriculture. More specifically, we provided three-day lectures and hands-on training on IoTs. The topics included an introduction to IoT and IoT applications in Agriculture, the components of the Raspberry Pi, data collection with Raspberry Pi and sensors, and application of outdoor sensors. Through the training, students gained hands-on experience in assembling and configuring the microcontroller for agricultural applications. The four-day lectures and hands-on training on UAVs include: introduction to UAs and remote sensing, drone planning, and UAV training. Through these training activities, students have experience on a whole roadmap of deploying UAVs for agriculture, including preparation before the flight, the actual flight, and the flight data post processing. The three-day lectures and hands-on training on GIS include: an introduction to GIS, getting start with ArcGIS Online, Data integration and analysis with ArcGIS, dashboard development and real-time visualization, and geoevent and other GIS real-time capabilities. Through these training and hands-on activities, students had the capability to process and visualize, and handle real-time spatial data. In addition, we also offered a workshop on data science, including for example, Python programming, NumPy and Pandas for data manipulation and analysis. We have also offered workshops on professional development such as conduct research and technical writing. These workshops were original planed in Fall semester. However we moved them to the end of summer as requested by students. We will include them in the next year annual report because they were offered in the end of June. The activities in summer 2024 including the training are detailed at our project website at https://sites.google.com/view/tamucc-reeu/activities/week-3?authuser=0 How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have shared our AgTech REEU program and activities provided by the program to the public through social media, our university's website, and local news. Here are some links: 1) students were featured on Kiit TV and local news: https://www.kiiitv.com/article/news/local/agrilife-students-computer-science-agriculture/503-b2e4bded-7a41-4673-9157-e8fa0186aeb6; 2) AgriLife Today - Texas A&M AgriLife's digital magazine and newsroom: https://agrilifetoday.tamu.edu/2023/10/18/agtech-opportunity-to-gain-tech-skills-smart-farming-experience-for-undergraduate-students/; and 3) CBI's new webpage: https://www.conradblucherinstitute.org/news/agtech-reeu. Our program is the 25-week program. The main focus in Fall semester is to share and disseminate the research results from the team-based research projects at conferences. We will include the details in our next year's annual report. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?During the next reporting period (June 14, 2024, to June 13, 2025), we aim to achieve two main objectives: 1) complete the activities for Cohort 2024 for Year One, and 2) Form Cohort 2025 for Year Two. For Cohort-2024, there are three primary goals to accomplish by the end of 2024: 1) complete two team-based research projects: by June 14, 2024, students had finished nearly all hands-on training associated with four projects. After that, they will then focus on team-based research projects. Students will be divided into two teams with a mix of backgrounds and will conduct two field-based research projects, one for each team. The projects will integrate IoTs, UAV, and Geospatial Analytics, applying what they have learned throughout the program to solve irrigation management problems. 2) Professional development workshop: we will offer a workshop focused on conducting effective research. Key topics will include, for example, the research process, writing and presenting research findings, research design, literature review, reference citations, and research tools such as Overleaf, GitHub, and EndNote. These topics are essential for students as they will conduct research projects and will prepare them to disseminate their research results. 3) Conference presentation: students will share their AgTech REEU program experience and share their team project findings at conferences. The target conference is the ASA/CSSA/SSSA annual meeting, November 10-13, San Antonio, Texas. For Cohort 2025 for Year Two, ourgoals include: Recruitment: we aim to recruit eight students, particularly Hispanics and females from diverse STEM and agriculture backgrounds. We expect to recruit one student from engineering, such as electrical engineering. We had one student from Engineering in our original Cohort 2024. However, that student did not make due to other commitments. Spring webinars: we will offer a series of webinars in the spring as we did for Cohort 2024. Curriculum revisions: Based on Year One feedback and Cohort 2025, we will revise the summer short courses (lectures and hands-on activities). Research project design: We plan to improve the design of team-based research projects for the summer program based on Year One feedback and Cohort 2025. Recruitment for Year Two will be a priority, and we have laid a strong foundation during Year One for continuous improvement in instructional connect, active learning research projects, and student support strategies, as highlighted in our external evaluation report. We will use similar recruitment strategies as in Year One, including sharing updated materials through social media and with our contact list and working with external partners like AMU-Kingsville and Del Mar Community College. Classroom visits proved effective, and we will continue this approach. Additionally, we will attend the first PD meeting in Kansas City in October 2024. We hope to connect with other REEU programs and explore collaboration opportunities for student recruitment. We aim to form Cohort 2025 by January 2025 and start the Spring program in early March as we had for Year One. Our team is currently reviewing lessons learned from Year One, including recruitment/curriculum/research challenges, student diversity, feedback from Cohort 2024, and external evaluation report from C&A. Based on the feedback from Cohort 2024 and the backgrounds of Cohort 2025, we will update the instructional content, such as the weekly webinars for Spring and short courses and hands-on activities for the summer program. We will add team-building activities to let students know each other before they are on campus in the summer. Additionally, we will also adjust the summer schedule to allow students to begin research projects earlier, providing more time to work on team-based research - an important lesson from Cohort 2024.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
As today's farmers look to technology to improve production with less manpower, the future workforce must learn to use emerging technologies to perform agricultural tasks previously done by hand. Smart farming is the future of agriculture that involves technological innovations for farm management and is a key to developing sustainable agriculture. Global spending on smart and connected agricultural technologies is projected to triple by 2025. However, the current workforce lacks opportunities for science-based training and experience. Our program aims to empower students with the knowledge and experience to use innovative agricultural technologies to become qualified, passionate professionals ready to pursue advanced degrees or careers. There is great potential for students who participate in this program to go on and pursue graduate degrees and get involved in research or find high-paying jobs in the agriculture industry. The market for digital agriculture is growing, and we will need trained professionals in the coming years. During the first year of our AgTech REEU program, we recruited and provided research and extension experience to eight undergraduate students, including six underrepresented minorities, three females, and two from community colleges. Seven of the eight students were from Texas, and seven were from outside our TAMUCC campus. All eight students recruited in our AgTech REEU program indicate that they will or most likely will go to graduate study after they have completed their undergraduate studies. These eight students participating in our AgTech REEU program are part of a 25-week program covering Spring, Summer, and Fall, including Spring seminar instruction, Summer activity-learning, field-based team research projects, and Fall sharing of data and results from Summer research efforts. Through this experiential learning research and extension experiences, we helped students acquire knowledge, skills, and abilities in using innovative agricultural technologies to prepare them for the future intelligent agriculture workforce and graduate study. C&A asked students at the end of the Spring session to provide feedback associated with activities offered in the Spring. According to the external evaluation report by C&A, nearly all of the students reported that the Spring seminars had met or exceeded their expectations. They felt confident or very confident the Spring seminars had prepared them for the Summer research sessions. For example, students provided some comments associated with the Spring seminars: "big data and how that plays a role in making decisions, GIS technology since I plan to minor in that field, I felt it is very important to get some hands-on experience, and agronomy to understand the business aspect is really important." "I learned how drones can help with crop maintenance, and I am very excited to start working on these projects"; "I really enjoyed the GIS workshop, crop growth and application to agriculture". According to the students' feedback associated with the hands-on activities and research provided by the C&A, the majority of students were satisfied or more satisfied with the efforts and activities provided in each project. Through crop tour visits and field trips with county extension agents, students engaged and worked with County extension agents as well as with local producers to support cotton, corn, and grain sorghum crop production and learn best practices to improve sustainability and profitability for local producers. Some comments from students include, for example, "I very much enjoyed learning about the dashboard and creating a spatial database for the project," "I enjoyed working and understanding the field of County Extension agents," and "I appreciated the meetings with the agents and understand their work and meeting with local industry people and understand how it works." As stated in the external annual report by C&A, during the first year of the project, our grant team is in place and has created the necessary grant processes and management structure to support strategy implementation and continuous improvement associated with the four essential elements 1) faculty work with external partners to create undergraduate research & activity learning experiences in innovative technologies to support sustainable agriculture and development; 2) build mentoring opportunities to allow students to work and learn from professionals in the agricultural technology and smart farming industry; 3) recruit students to AgTech REEU opportunity; and 4) launch research-based learning experience & mental support for Spring & Summer 2024. We have reported the effort/funds expended in support of the "Project Coordinator" position for this project. Currently, these duties are shared by the following Conrad Blucher Institute personnel, Ms. DeAnna Crites, Assistant Director for Research Administration and Ms. Gina Concannon, Associate Executive Director. Together, they have more than 35 years of experience supporting pre- and post-award administration of sponsored projects. Additionally, various personnel provided volunteer efforts in support of this project - mainly in the summer months when the participants were at TAMU-CC. These efforts were critical to ensuring that the participants were welcomed to the campus community and supported during their time in Corpus Christi. The activity integration and design of this 25-week program are a very innovative approach to teaching our future students to work in digital agriculture. According to students' feedback, this program has really helped them learn things they normally would not in the classroom, which they hope to use for a future career.
Publications
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