Progress 05/01/24 to 04/30/25
Outputs
Target Audience:We reached all nine populations that we proposed as target audiences in this first year. We designed and implemented the program with representatives from the USDA Climate Hubs, PNW NOAA RISA, postdoctoral research associate, US government and state agency policymakers addressing climate change and agriculture, NGOs, and relevant scientific societies and peer scientists and extension educators. Recipients of our programming include the Cooperative Extension Specialists and Educators focused on specialty crop production in the six target USDA Climate Hub regions and graduate students. We have completed two of three study tours with the second cohort and are engaging specialty crop growers on these field tours and through cohort projects. Changes/Problems: The primary two challenges we confronted this year are related to Climate Hubs capacity building and work on the climate analogs tool. We had hoped to achieve deeper engagement with the Climate Hubs this year but are content with a similar amount of interaction as last year. We designed the academy's programing to be able to be successfully implemented with minimal or uneven participation among the six Hubs we partner with, and this approach has allowed for minimal disruption and adaptation to the academies' curriculum. One of our short-term goals was to expand the climate analog tool to include more precision for specialty crops expand the climate analog tool to include more precision for specialty crops. Instead of hiring a postdoc early in the program, we chose to gather information from the 2024 extension cohort to gather ideas and choose among several options for improving the tool. An offer was made for this postdoc position in spring of 2025 but was unsuccessful due to unforeseen hurdles getting a work visa for the candidate. To address this challenge, graduate fellows were hired to expand the analog simulations to additional counties. We hope to have the postdoc join early winter and integrate changes into the tool. In addition to those challenges, we made one other significant change based on participant feedback. Rather than hosting the combined cohort activity at a national meeting at the end of year two, we hosted a combined tour of cohort one and two in Washington state early during the second cohort. The goal here was to create early, in-person and cross-cohort engagement, as well as creating an "analog-dialog tour" experience to model the learning process. This turned out to be possibly the most meaningful and successful activity thus far - and clearly facilitated continued engagement of cohort one graduates and the new cohort. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The Academy's purpose is to provide training and professional development. In addition to learning the workshop content, our emphasis on dialogue among the participants provides opportunities for them to learn how communication theories can be implemented in climate change educational programs, enabling the participants to gain confidence in communicating with their clientele. Graduate student interns are currently meeting weekly with project team members to develop extension communication projects and receive professional development training and mentorship. The graduate students and Cooperate Extension Specialists and Educators who are participating in the program are the primary audience we seek to impact through the Climate Analogs Academy. Some of the Extension participants have told us the most valuable aspect of the Academy has been getting to know other Extension professionals around the country who are also interested in specialty crop climate adaptation. It is clear from ongoing dialogue that there are analogous situations across regions, crops, and production system challenges. We have seen some success in making climate change adaptation concrete and actionable through a few pathways. First, we have seen that demonstration and discussion of educational climate and decision support tools has led to new approaches for communicating about climate change with stakeholders and in one instance, an extension participant from Michigan was able to facilitate a major decision support tool being adapted for use in MI from the Southeast where it was developed. This will help Michigan blueberry growers anticipate anthracnose disease outbreaks quickly related to weather conditions and past management info in order to make important management decisions. To return to the other example of tool educating enhancing outreach, the presentations that now feature methods from our program will help their audiences, extension, farmers, and gardeners better understand the primary risks of a changing climate across several US states and Canadian provinces. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The 2024 cohort and graduate interns have delivered seven presentations featuring academy content, one course module, four completed extension publications, and one popular news article. This communication has mostly been aimed at agricultural advisors, and to a lesser extent farmers and the general public. ?This year the main products coming out of the academy are the independent projects that each participant developed in 2024. The formats of the projects included presentations (3), a workshop (1), and articles/fact sheets (2). Other projects include an online course module for adult learners including farmers on climate smart farming and a draft portal for visualizing specialty crops' suitability with climate projections in CA. Another participant completed a pilot research experiment to demonstrate to small farmers in OK and TX how growing seedless and heirloom watermelon varieties differs across a climate gradient. This project has been the inspiration for a potential expanded project proposal for future funding that includes members of the 2024 extension cohort, a USDA Climate Hub, and possibly members of the 2025 cohort. Regarding the fact sheet project, there are four publications completed. A fact sheet titled Coastal fog and California agriculture: ecological benefits of foggy summer days was published in the Napa County 2024 Crop Report and has garnered attention and resources for continued work. A project characterizing the likelihood of extreme heat events on highbush blueberry and a literature review of the physiological consequences of extreme heat on different plant and fruit developmental stages led to one extension article (in review), and two digital fact sheets (pending upload). In the last year, one news story was published about the Academy. This article, in Good Fruit Grower, was about the tangible takeaways our participant in Michigan has been applying from her experience in the academy last year. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We plan to share about our program and get feedback from different potential audiences, like industry agronomists and sustainability specialists, for a new and smaller version of the academy. We plan to write collaborate on a perspective with similar programs such as Climate Adaptation and Mitigation Fellowship to propose best practices for cohort-based training programs for technical service providers focused on agriculture sustainability topics. This is in addition to our program evaluation study that is underway. Additionally, we have set up a LinkedIn group to serve as our method of staying connected after the program ends. Project team members, student interns, and Climate Hub staff are connected here for resource sharing and discussion. These efforts will continue to skill up a workforce responsive to the USDA Climate Hubs priorities and needs.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
To address our overarching goal of building extension and Climate Hub capacity and expertise to catalyze climate change adaptation in US specialty crops, we have addressed the following objectives in the second year: Objective 1: We have largely achieved our first objective to develop, establish, and refine a train-the-trainer program. Activities: The curriculum for the second year of the training program is complete, and the second cohort of 10 extension participants have reached the halfway point in the program. The first study tour just happened in the San Joaquin Valley, CA and the second will be mid-September in central TX. Participants have proposed their independent projects, and most have received mentorship to scope and refine them. Data:The 2024 cohort interviews have been completed, and the data are being processed for analysis. Discussion: We are analyzing qualitative interview data in order to evaluate our train-the-trainer program. It is our intention to submit the results of our analysis for peer-review in 2026. Results of a preliminary analysis of semi-structured interviews with the 2024 cohort suggest that the academy created a space for autonomous and transformational learning. Academy participants also spoke of networked learning opportunities and fostering professional connections that have endured beyond the academy. All participants articulated significant perspective shifts related to their understanding of climate risks and the challenges facing their local environments and communities. Objective 2: Develop a diverse and skilled workforce responsive to the USDA Climate Hubs priorities and needs. Activities: We received mostly positive feedback from the three graduate interns at the end of their summer internship. A highlight was the time spent on professional development conversations and namely the guidance on writing an effective cover letter and the mock job interviews we did. The constructive feedback was that the program could have been better organized with clearer expectations. To address this feedback, we have prioritized meeting weekly, and the students are getting more support in developing their independent projects. Within the extension cohort, there are a range of career stages represented. This appears to be valuable for resource sharing and bridging knowledge and technical expertise in our dialogue. Early career extension participants in both 2024 (4) and 2025 (3) have disproportionately shared that the academy has helped them in various aspects of their work. The research coordinator coordinating the academy has also met her own expectations for learning about specialty crop production, climate adaptation, and has gained notable confidence in leading teams and facilitating virtual workshops. Data: This objective does not include data collection. Discussion: There are no quantitative results associated with this objective. Objective 3: Enhance the connectivity between Extension and the regional USDA Climate Hubs Activities: Communication with the six Climate Hubs participating in the academy has been successful thus far this year despite transitions in staffing at the Hubs. At the completion of the first year of the program last December, we received feedback that many hubs were supportive of how we were communicating and running the academy and were interested in engaging more deeply in year two. However, it has been necessary and so far, successful to invite hub staff to participate in workshops minimally, and like last year, participants are now reconnecting with their regional Hub's representative for feedback and approval on their independent project plans. Data collected: This objective does not include data collection. Discussion: There are no quantitative results associated with this objective. In this second year we made progress on our short-term and some medium-term outcomes, and through continued interaction with all members of the 2024 cohort we believe many of the extension participants are empowered to take part in actualizing our long-term goals. The second-year train-the-trainer curriculum is complete. We followed through integrating feedback by modifying the workshop session pace (slightly shorter sessions and spacing the sessions out over a longer period of time), content, and format. We have learned many important pedagogical lessons like avoiding panels when the group is still building trust as well as sending the agenda and small assignment before workshops to help participants prepare to engage in productive dialogue. It appears we have achieved our objective of building trust earlier in the program in 2025, given the ease at which participants engage in conversation virtually and their confidence in proposing independent project ideas that meet program expectations compared to last year. Another medium-term goal is to build extension and Climate Hub capacity for extending climate change research across the major specialty crop producing regions. This year we selected participants with commercial processing vegetable crop expertise such as potato, as well as tree fruit and tree nuts. Though we had planned for increased engagement with the Hubs this year given that they are oriented and supportive of the program after year one, we are content with a similar level of interaction with Hubs staff this year and see that hubs and extension know more about each other and recognize each other as potential partners as future needs and opportunities come up.
Publications
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Progress 05/01/23 to 04/30/24
Outputs
Target Audience:We reached all nine populations that we proposed as target audiences in this first year. We designed and implemented the program with representatives from the USDA Climate Hubs, PNW NOAA RISA, postdoctoral research associate, US government and state agency policymakers addressing climate change and agriculture, NGOs, and relevant scientific societies and peer scientists and extension educators. Recipients of our programming include the Cooperative Extension Specialists and Educators focused on specialty crop production in the six target USDA Climate Hub regions and graduate students. We have completed one of three study tours for the first cohort and are engaging specialty crop growers on these field tours.? Changes/Problems:Given that recruitment for the first cohort was wide-open, we found it challenging to align perfect participant pairings based on specific and definitive climate analogs for every participant. We ultimately optimized cohort selection by identifying participants covering each of the six target Climate Hub regions, who largely fell into two general production system categories: diversified produce and small fruit production systems, where we were able to develop regional analog matches for subsets of the cohort. We therefore shifted our structure to focus on small group discussions and group study tours rather than in pairs. From the project team's perspective this worked reasonably well, and we will use year 2 as a second chance to test the potential of quality matches between sets of Extension participants within the cohort. To do target ideal climate analogs pairs we will use a recruitment campaign prior to the application period in which we will determine the climate analog regions for applicants who submitted quality applications in the first applicant pool and reach out to Extension professionals in those analog regions to invite them to participate in the program. We note that the participants on the first study tour valued the group aspect of the tour and thus we are considering a hybrid of the proposed paired model and the current group model for the 2nd year study tours. Our evaluation process will identify positives and negatives of the pairings vs. group process approach. Creating the right environment for high quality, inclusive dialogue to unfold in virtual meetings is challenging, especially given IT and connectivity challenges a couple of participants have had with Microsoft Teams. We have learned that more time for personal and professional introductions is essential to build the camaraderie and cohesiveness of the group that supports full engagement in a dialogue approach. We are proud of our efforts but recognize our biases towards formats that are not especially conducive to dialogue such as traditional panels. Relying on dialogue for content sharing is also risky. One effort to inform the right balance of dialogue vs content sharing is through an information exchange group our project manager is coordinating with two other NIFA-supported virtual train-the-trainer climate related programs aimed at agriculture professionals and farmers. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The Academy's purpose is to provide training and professional development. In addition to learning the workshop's content, our emphasis on dialogue among the participants provides opportunities for them to learn how communication theories can be implemented in climate change educational programs, enabling the participants to gain confidence in communicating with their clientele. Graduate student interns are currently meeting with the PI and project manager to debrief on workshops and undergo a summer-long professional development training for job preparation, including writing effective cover letters and learning about interviewing and doing a mock interview with members of the project team. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We are capturing the character of the dialogue workshops in a Miro board to accompany the core workshop curriculum. Miro is a virtual, collaborative workspace. Communication with the six Hubs has largely been conducted through email, PI/Project Manager check ins, and workshop participation. Publicity for the project has occurred through the news article and blog post. Recruitment of participants was disseminated to extension through email and social media campaigns, and all key information was hosted on our website. A publicity campaign is in development using experiences from the first cohort as part of the recruitment process for the second cohort. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?To further address objective 1, the creation of a train-the-trainer program that features dialogue more than information dissemination, we will incorporate feedback to make the following changes in year 2. For the workshops, we aim to build trust earlier on in the program and work on the right balance of dialogue and content delivery. For study tour planning, we hope to start earlier in the program and have the participants generate more ideas of what they want to do on the tours. We have also reserved time this fall to modify the workshop series, the independent project process, and the study tour planning process as we receive feedback from the current cohort. For example, we learned in the last workshop that the Miro platform we are using is not effective for supporting dialogue or enhancing understanding, but that the reason is likely that we did not spend enough time training people so they could easily participate in activities. So, we can opt to try another platform or invest in more time training next year. Again, objective 2 is to develop a diverse and skilled workforce responsive to the Hubs' priorities and needs via a training cohort including current specialty crop Extension professionals, graduate student interns, and early career professionals. To further address objective 2, we will offer a trip to DC for cohorts' graduate students and postdocs for all 8 of these individuals to spend time together while learning about ag policy. We will ask our current graduate student interns for feedback on how to structure the internship next summer. Objective 3 is to enhance the connectivity between Extension and the regional USDA Climate Hubs to better serve the nation-wide specialty crop industry in climate adaptation. We are hopeful that an interactive feedback session with the Climate Hubs directors and staff we are working with will help us refine our strategy for how we engage with the Climate Hubs in our 2nd year of the program. We anticipate that our recent efforts to summarize the independent projects and show what happened on study tours on our website and include them in our sessions to share and debrief on these activities will help the Climate Hubs fully realize the potential for the program. These specific projects and study tour stories should help our Hubs representatives reflect and provide specific advice for how we can zero in on using the Academy to build Climate Hub capacity as we build bridges between the Hubs and regional Extension professionals working on specialty crops. Finally, our project manager will be checking in with the project team members to learn what changes, if any, should be considered to keep the meeting frequency manageable and satisfactorily productive to maintain our energy and strong participation in the fall and 2nd year of the Academy.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
1.Problem to solve We are addressing a gap in climate change preparedness within specialty crops through a training program for Extension professionals. The Climate Analogs Academy seeks to make climate adaptation more concrete and actionable through 1) creation of a train-the-trainer program that features dialogue more than information dissemination, 2) develop a diverse and skilled workforce responsive to the Hubs' priorities and needs via a training cohort including current specialty crop Extension professionals, graduate student interns, and early career professionals. Objective 3: Enhance the connectivity between Extension and the regional USDA Climate Hubs to better serve the nation-wide specialty crop industry in climate adaptation. 2. Major Activities To address our overarching goal of building Extension and Climate Hub capacity and expertise to catalyze climate change adaptation in US specialty crops, we have addressed the following objectives in the first year: Objective 1: We have largely achieved our first objective to develop, establish, and refine a train-the-trainer program. Activities: The curriculum for the first year of the training program is complete, and the first cohort of 10 Extension participants are nearing the half-way point in the program. To highlight the status of the main elements of the program: we delivered 9 of the12 virtual workshops proposed with the remainder planned for July and August. Study tours are being planned for June 17-18 around Santa Cruz, CA, Aug 5-7 in DE and Oct 18-20th in OK/TX. Participants have proposed their independent projects, and most have received mentorship to scope and refine them. Data: Towards collecting data for our future study evaluating the program, we have created a research team with clear roles and communication norms. To ensure a robust analysis we have recruited a social scientist to lead the project, with communications to be led by our project manager. We developed evaluation instruments and received IRB exemption status for conducting semi-structured interviews with the current Extension participants in the fall. Discussion: in progress Objective 2: Develop a diverse and skilled workforce responsive to the USDA Climate Hubs priorities and needs. Activities: We met our proposed diversity goal by admitting 30% of Extension participants from underrepresented backgrounds in specialty crop Extension. Our strategy for recruiting a diverse applicant pool was to first consult with Washington State University's Assistant Dean for Inclusive Excellence and include the following language on the recruitment website under 'Cohort Selection Criteria':We met our proposed diversity goal by admitting 30% of Extension participants from underrepresented backgrounds in specialty crop Extension. Our strategy for recruiting a diverse applicant pool was to first consult with Washington State University's Assistant Dean for Inclusive Excellence and include the following language on the recruitment website under 'Cohort Selection Criteria': "We are actively seeking participants broadly representative of the diverse communities, producer groups, and specialty crop production systems from around the US." Another activity to report is that our graduate student summer internship is underway for the first cohort of 3 graduate students. The main components of their internship include collaborating with an Extension participant on an independent project. For example, a 4th year PhD student is supporting an Extension educator in Napa, CA identify what types of long-term datasets and models could work to evaluate climate-induced changes in the marine layer that the region relies on for growing berries, grapes, and lettuce. These grad students are also receiving professional development training on applying and interviewing for post-PhD jobs, participating in the summer portion of the workshop series (5 workshops), and participating on a study tour with the Extension professionals. An additional component of the workforce training includes training our 2 postdocs in climate adaptation strategy and communication. We successfully hired our project manager postdoc to begin planning the Academy just 2 months after the grant was initiated, which was an important first step for our success in staying on track with all elements of our proposed timeline. One noteworthy aspect of this postdoc's training Data: This objective does not include data collection. Discussion: There are no quantitative results associated with this objective. Objective 3: Enhance the connectivity between Extension and the regional USDA Climate Hubs Activities: Communication with the Climate Hubs has been successful thus far. The project team has planned the workshops that feature the Hubs to minimize the effort needed by the hubs to engage with the Academy. We invite them to participate approximately quarterly in virtual sessions and offer opportunities for them to provide feedback via email also about quarterly. Participants are now reconnecting with their regional Hub's representative for feedback and approval on their independent project plans, and we will invite them to our debrief presentations and discussions following completion of study tours and participant's independent projects. Data collected: This objective does not include data collection. Discussion: There are no quantitative results associated with this objective. 3. Key accomplishments In this first year we made progress on our short-term and some medium-term outcomes. The pilot train-the-trainer curriculum is nearly complete. We followed through with developing the program's elements as they were originally proposed (e.g. all 12 workshops with original titles). We aimed to strike a balance between recycling formats and activities across workshops to build psychological safety (e.g. breakout rooms, Mentimeter, Miro boards) while also experimenting with new activities within workshops to learn when types of activities best lead to fruitful dialogue where participants are both challenged and contributing original ideas and stories to advance their understanding and self-efficacy. We believe we have learned many important pedagogical lessons (like avoiding panels when the group is forming) that we will test in with the second cohort to hopefully build trust earlier in the program. Communication with the USDA Climate Hubs has been going well and representatives from all 6 partnering Hubs have been supportive and responsive to our requests. We expect that we will be able to make further inroads after the Extension participants share summaries of their independent projects and their study tour experiences, and consequently providing more tangible examples of the specialty crop expertise and capabilities they can bring to the Climate Hubs. 4. Who was impacted The graduate students and Cooperate Extension Specialists and Educators who are participating in the program are the primary audience we seek to impact through the Climate Analogs Academy. Some of the Extension participants have told us the most valuable aspect of the Academy has been getting to know other Extension professionals around the country who are also interested in specialty crop climate adaptation. It is clear from ongoing dialogue that there are analogous situations across regions, crops, and production system challenges. The participants are also developing relationships with their regions' Climate Hub and the 10 members of our project team. They have also learned workshop content and interacted with guest experts from USDA, industry, and the policy community who they are interacting with in virtual workshops and on study tours. While we have ideas for how to improve next year, we have seen some success in making climate change adaptation concrete and actionable through a focus dialogue and learning about and seeing climate analog locations.
Publications
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