2018 ASHS Annual Conference

Many challenges await agriculture’s next generation including increasing food production while conserving natural resources and meeting food quality and nutrition standards. Compounding these challenges is the insufficient pipeline of students in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) entering the field. To address these hurdles in the STEM fields related to agriculture and food production, this project developed innovative agricultural science curriculum and professional development trainings focused on controlled environment agriculture (CEA) and soilless vegetable production systems. The curriculum was designed to use CEA to connect basic science with food production to provide material flexible enough to be used in agriculture education, as well as biology and chemistry classes. By linking agriculture with basic science concepts, the topic of food production becomes applicable to students across a spectrum of STEM classes. This enables students not currently engaged in agriculture to be introduced to scientific, engineering, and technology needs and applications of the CEA field that fit their interest areas. Professional development workshops were also developed to equip secondary agriculture and science teachers with the background and foundation to deploy the new curriculum and connected research questions in their classrooms. Modern agriculture requires skills in production techniques and technology, and this project can equip educators to reach an ever-expanding student audience with interests in both. This presentation will describe the curriculum development process as well as outcomes of professional development workshops and trainings integration of this curriculum with Extension programs.