Agricultural Career Readiness Experiences (ACREs) for Agricultural Educators

Commodities

Practices

• Education and Training: youth education

The Agricultural Career Readiness Experiences (ACREs) for Agricultural Educators project implements a train-the-trainer model to empower Kansas secondary-level School-based Agricultural Educators (SBAE). The project specifically targets the state's 244 SBAE programs, where nearly half are staffed by professionals in their first five years of teaching and require increased technical expertise and curriculum resources. The ACREs program focuses on three core objectives for instructor training: business financial literacy, planning, and recordkeeping; on-farm agriscience research implementation and skills; and marketing strategies and development for local food systems.

To achieve its goals, the project will first host an intensive three-day summer workshop in 2027 for a select cohort of 25 teacher leaders. These leaders will then facilitate three regional one-day trainings and district-level professional development sessions, scaling the reach of the new experiential curriculum to their peers across the state.

The anticipated outcomes of this initiative include training 75% of all Kansas agricultural educators in the ACREs curriculum by 2029. Furthermore, the project aims to foster deeper local roots, with 50% of participating programs reporting the addition of a local producer to their advisory committees. Ultimately, these efforts are designed to drive a 100% increase in student participation in entrepreneurship and agriscience research experiences statewide, ensuring the next generation of the agricultural workforce is prepared for the industry's evolving demands aimed towards profitable agriculture and stewardship.

The outputs of the ACREs project will be products, processes, and partnerships. Products will include educational materials ready for high school agriculture teachers' use in their classrooms. The process of incorporating the three pillars of the ACREs project will be established through professional development led by lead teachers trained by the curriculum authors. Finally, this project will result in partnerships between local producers, teachers, and resources.

The product of the ACREs project includes experiential curriculum that will equip teachers to establish the basic understanding of objective 1: business, financial literacy, planning, and recordkeeping; objective 2: on-farm agriscience research implementation and skills; and objective 3: marketing strategies and development for local food systems. The undergraduate curriculum author and two agricultural education faculty will work together on crafting three two-week educational units that will be classroom-ready resources for teachers. The curriculum resources will include teacher lesson plans, students' workbooks, and related digital resources.

The process of creating the curriculum and teacher professional development events will yield at least 75% of all Kansas Agriculture teachers will receive professional development experiences related to ACREs between the three state-wide KAAE professional development event keynotes, the train the trainer conference, and state and teacher-led professional development events.

The train-the-trainer three-day intensive workshop will connect the 25 teachers ( at least two from each of the seven FFA Districts in Kansas), with local producers, agriculture finance professionals, and on-farm researchers. The event will be at a Kansas State University research farm to give the teachers hands-on experiences with the research that is happening across the state. The 25 teacher leaders will each provide a regional workshop highlighting the ACREs resources. The 25 teachers will be divided into three regions - west, central, and east. Each group of 4-6 teachers will host a one-day ACREs-focused workshop in their region at a K-State Extension research site. This will give the anticipated 25 teachers at each site connections to industry professionals. At least three different professionals will be engaged in each of the three regional events.

Overall, we will engage 75% of the 244 teachers (183 teachers) through Keynote speakers at the KAAE Agricultural Education Symposium conferences. Twenty-five teachers will be selected to attend an intensive three-day workshop that is supported by at least six industry professionals: researchers, producers, and agriculture finance experts. The teachers will then share the ACREs project at the seven FFA districts during their fall teacher meetings. The teachers will also host at least 25 teachers at each of the three regional professional development events. Each regional professional development event will engage with at least one researcher, producer, and agricultural financial professional. One undergraduate student will write the curriculum resources with the support of two agricultural education faculty members. At the end of the experience, we will have impacted over 200 teachers, 15 agriculture professionals, and at least one undergraduate student. However, the immeasurable impact will be the knowledge gained by the over 20,000 students taught by the teachers who receive the curriculum and professional development.