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Agricultural education students spend spring break teaching in U.S. 高中

Students speak 41 native languages at John Bowne High School in Flushing, 纽约, which boasts one of the nation’s most diverse student bodies and provided an ideal setting for University of Idaho 农业教育 students to broaden their horizons.

约翰·鲍恩是五名美国人之一.S. schools to welcome students from U of I and Penn State University for a week of guest teaching. The 2023 spring break immersion experience was part of a USDA-funded program to provide future agricultural educators with teaching experiences to make them more culturally responsive and globally educated.

在他们的春假期间, 10 aspiring agricultural teachers from U of I and nine from Penn State assumed control of high school and middle school classrooms in 纽约, 北卡罗莱纳, 佛罗里达, 加州和犹他州.

Participating students in the collaborative pilot program — mostly juniors majoring in 农业教育 — undergo a year of real-world experiences and related coursework. Called Global Orientation to Agricultural Learning (GOALs), the pilot will wrap up its second year this spring. U of I received word in March 2023 that USDA has awarded another grant for $750,000 to continue and expand the program for three more years, 从2023年秋季开始.

I think it is so important that we keep students connected to the realities of the world and the ways that they can help make a difference. Kasee史密斯

“You simply cannot learn to be an educator only within the walls of a classroom on a college campus,” Kasee史密斯, 农业教育副教授, 领导与沟通, who co-leads the U of I program along with Jeremy Falk. “I think it is so important that we keep students connected to the realities of the world and the ways that they can help make a difference.”

Participants start the program by taking a three-credit fall semester course covering food insecurity, 全球农业问题, 文化能力, and interact online with the group from Penn State. 10月，他们前往得梅因, 爱荷华州, to participate in the World Food Prize Foundation’s Borlaug Dialogue, where they hear presentations about global food system challenges. 5月, the students attend the awarding of the World Food Prize — recognizing individuals for improving the quantity, quality or availability of food in the world — in Washington, D.C.

The program’s spring course focuses on curriculum development and preparing students to be at the head of a classroom. 在春假期间沉浸, participants teach four days of predeveloped curriculum, 是由一名伊利诺伊大学的研究生创作的吗, and a fifth day of curriculum they develop themselves in small groups.

“I think they ask better questions and reflect as a teacher in such a strong way because of these experiences,福尔克说, 他是bet365亚洲官网农业教育教授. “他们会说, ‘Yesterday I taught this and it worked or it didn’t work, so this is how I’m going to adjust how I teach that.’”

Starting in fall 2023, the program will add a summer immersive experience in Belize. Participants will spend 10 days of their summer break in the English-speaking Central American country teaching in middle school and high school classrooms.

The program will also be adding 1890 Universities — comprising 19 Black land-grant universities established under a second Morrill Act in 1890 — as a third partner. 它将接受六名来自伊利诺伊大学的学生, six from Penn State and six from 1890 Universities — including two students from 北卡罗莱纳 Agricultural and Technical State University, two students from Tennessee State University and two students chosen at large from any of the 1890 Universities.

The program will further expand to accept eight students from each of the three groups in years four and five.

The pilot program was funded with a two-year grant from USDA’s Secondary Education, Postsecondary Education and Agriculture in the K-12 Classroom Challenge 格兰特s Program (SPECA). 项目的第三到第五年, called “Globally Aware and Culturally Fluent Future Educators in Food 安全 Education: Changing the World Together,的项目将获得为期三年的资助, $750,000 grant from USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, 其中百分之百是联邦的份额, 根据联邦裁决. 2023-70003-38776.