Engaging Secondary Teachers in CALS Research for Agricultural Literacy

The Engaging Secondary Teachers in CALS Research for Agricultural Literacy program will establish a sustainable continuing professional education model to meet the challenge of training middle and high school educational professionals in the food and agricultural sciences. As a part of the land grant university, it is essential that Colleges of Agriculture and Life Sciences develop sustainable pathways to connect emerging research and resources to the current secondary curriculum to encourage youth to explore the opportunities available in food and agricultural science career paths.

The program hopes to support 80 teachers from schools serving predominantly minority identifying students, seeking to engage youth in pathways for STEM fields within the food, agriculture, natural resources, and human (FANH) sciences. The long-term goal is to develop collaborative partnerships between university researchers and high school and middle school teachers to enrich secondary course content and opportunities for student recruitment in FANH sciences.

Focus points of the program include:

• Conduct a model on-campus continuing professional development program that allows secondary teachers the opportunity to learn and experience current research and development projects in agricultural and life sciences.
• Facilitate new partnerships between food, agriculture, nutrition, and health science researchers and secondary teachers.
• Develope lesson plans to support the sustainability of the learning activities.
• Provide each participating secondary teacher with $1,200 in materials to implement the new research information in their classrooms.
• Provide opportunities for cmapus visits for participating teachers and their students (maximum 50)

This work is supported by Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) 2022-67037-36255 from the  USDA National Institute for Food and Agriculture.