Integrating Sustainable and Regenerative Agriculture into K-12 Education through Professional Development

Commodities

Practices

• Education and Training: mentoring, networking, youth education
• Sustainable Communities: sustainability measures

This professional development (PD) project will offer educators the knowledge, skills, and resources necessary to grow their capacity and confidence in integrating sustainable and regenerative agriculture (SRA) topics across Kansas's core curriculum and educational activities. This proposal includes developing needed resources and delivering high-quality PD in the form of an online microcredential to a target audience of 50 educators who will pilot the delivery of learning materials to an estimated 1000 K-12 students. Successful implementation will result in increased knowledge for educators and students of connections between SRA and environmental outcomes (including soil health, biodiversity, climate change, water quality, and conservation), SRA practices, and the origins of food. Through the development of this PD, the Kansas Association for Conservation and Environmental Education (KACEE) and the Kansas Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom (KFAC) will solidify a partnership in improving sustainable regenerative agriculture education (SRAE). In the long term, the PD resources can be implemented in an ongoing manner across the state to increase educator confidence using SRA topics to support core learning and the integration of SRA topics in K-12 schools and informal settings as tracked by follow-up surveys with educators who take the SRA microcredential. These resources will long outlive the timeframe of this grant and continue to increase support for SRA.

The following are the targeted outputs for this proposed project:  

• Completed K-12 Scope and Sequence for learning with accompanying curriculum tools and resources that are age-appropriate and standards-based and easily incorporated into classes 
• Completed development of an SRA Microcredential, which incorporates 40 hours of learning to qualify for graduate credit and aligns with the KSDE’s microcredential program.  
• A targeted 50 educators will complete the microcredential and submit a teaching unit with an outline of their action research project. 
• Implementation of SRA teaching units by targeted 50 educators, collectively reaching an estimated 1000 K-12 students.  
• Implementation of 50 action research projects that provide evidence of implementation and impact on learning.  
• Completed comprehensive evaluation of the microcredential content and outcomes on educators and compiled action research findings.  
• Revision of the microcredential based on evaluation and development of an implementation plan for ongoing delivery of the SRA microcredential by KACEE and KFAC.   
• Improved and strengthened relationships between ag and environment, as well as KFAC and KACEE 
• Increased access for educators to industry professionals 
• Ongoing PD for SARE
• Increase of high-quality PD for educators