2019 ASHS Annual Conference

Ohio State University Agricultural Technical Institute (ATI) offers an associate degree in greenhouse and nursery management. Many local schools in Ohio have acquired greenhouses, however, without the competence in managing the greenhouses it is difficult to utilize the greenhouses in classroom activities. While the K-12 teachers were inquiring about taking regular courses offered at ATI, conflicting schedules prevented them from attending during school year. In 2018, a survey was sent to local schools in Ohio to evaluate the interest in a greenhouse management workshop among teachers. Content, timing, length of the workshop was determined based on the survey results from 63 respondents across Ohio. A one-day workshop in “Basics of the greenhouse environment” was organized and maximum registration of 30 was reached one month before the deadline. A survey was done at the time of registration to determine years of teaching experience, subject, grades, availability of a greenhouse in school, previous growing experience, and topics for the workshop. Twelve out of thirty registrants were teaching non-agriculture classes and eleven have never done any greenhouse growing. Therefore, the workshop content covered greenhouse basics including environment control, greenhouse production cycle, plant propagation, fertilizer management and lesson planning. The broad range of subject areas of the participants was utilized during the lesson planning session to develop relevant class activities. Post workshop survey was positive with an overall rating of 4.5 out of 5, and the teachers requested additional workshops. The workshops helped K-12 teachers to acquire skills in crop production and technology in greenhouses and enabled them to add relevant plant and technology-based activities to the curriculum.