Green Beer & Brew: Using Themed-styled Trainings to Increase Participation and Knowledge Gain

Volusia County has many licensed landscape pesticide applicators.  Each year, license holders seek Continued Education Units (CEUs) to increase industry knowledge and maintain their state certification.  Many traditional education programs used by County Extension offices are often conventional and routine, resulting in declining classroom attendance or landscape professionals obtaining CEUs online.  Therefore, increasing classroom participation and stimulating learning will require engaging classroom educational methods and enhanced marketing efforts. Two pesticide training classes were offered having Halloween and St. Paddy’s Day themes.  Marketing efforts included Facebook, email list serves, websites, and print media.  County agents instructed in costume themed attire, offered holiday décor and food, and used theme-styled educational presentations to increase knowledge gain.  Same day class survey results indicated that 69% of participants would be more likely to attend themed-style trainings in the future.  A three month follow-up survey indicated that 87% of participants indicated the theme-styled presentations helped them learn the subject matter better than non-themed presentations and reduced overall pesticide usage by 11%.  Theme-styled educational programming is an effective way to draw audiences that may not attend traditional classroom settings.  As a result, audiences expressed learning gains, pesticide usage reduction and monetary savings.