Utilizing Master Gardeners as Extension Educational Material Editors

In recent years the trend to “downsize” many state’s Extension budgets and personnel has resulted in fewer Extension professionals with fewer resources to meet the continued demand for home horticulture information. Meeting the need for this information has required new and unique approaches. Master Gardeners have long been involved in the traditional role of assisting county offices with the delivery of home horticulture programs and materials. In many cases, the programs and information delivered were developed primarily or solely by Master Gardeners. The result has been factsheets, pamphlets, PowerPoint, and other program material of professional quality. For the consumer horticulture specialist/state master gardener coordinator determining new and more efficient ways to utilize the talents and resources of these volunteers and “capturing” the abundant amount of material already generated and used by Master Gardeners was a natural solution to the “downsizing” problem.  To address the need to revise the backlog of outdated home horticulture publications and the need to develop more educational program material for the public, the consumer horticulture specialist partnered with the Mississippi Master Gardener Association to establish an Education Committee. This committee which consisted of a chairperson and 11 members was given two objectives.  These objectives were to assist the consumer horticulture specialist by acting as (1.) revision editors of the outdated home horticulture publications and (2.) to compile, edit, review and convert to electronic format educational materials that had been developed and delivered by Master Gardeners statewide. The end result of the second objective would be to have these educational materials available online through a password protected website for use by Mississippi Master Gardeners and Extension professionals. Through the process of compiling existing materials any home horticulture topic areas that were deficient in information would be targeted by the committee and specialist for future development.