Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Science Communications Lab
Leading the Way in Science Communications across the Agricultural, Life, and Environmental Sciences

Agricultural Sciences Communications Curriculum

The Science Communications Lab designs and develops teaching resources that are free to download and use across audience groups. The resources include reusable learning modules as well as face-to-face curriculum packages. The funding for the development of the teaching resources has been provided by federal funding agencies, as noted below.

Whether you use the online or face-to-face format, following these Teaching Tips will facilitate a positive experience for both instructors and students. Instructors using the Canvas LMS may find our Module Upload Instructions for Canvas helpful.

For questions regarding the science communications curriculum, email the Lab.

Access the curriculum by clicking on the plus sign next to each project title below.

Strengthening Communication Skills of Undergraduate Students in Agriculture

Future young scientists must be prepared with professional communications skills to disseminate scientific information to broad audiences of agricultural researchers, practitioners, and consumers. Strengthening Communication Skills of Agricultural Students: Using Real-World Examples to Meet Industry Employment Needs was funded by USDA’s Higher Education Challenge grant program in 2017.

The curriculum focus on Crawford et al.’s (2011) seven communication characteristics, using industry-specific examples and learning opportunities that allow college-level students to reflect and compare their communication techniques with industry expectations. 

Read Module Descriptions for further details about each module’s topic, teaching strategies, and learning objectives. The Curriculum Options shares additional details about the two curriculum teaching methods (face-to-face and online) to help you find the best fit for your course. Use the Access Instructions with step-by-step instructions to access all materials for this course.

You can access and download the curriculum packages, including the module and face-to-face instruction packet through the Texas A&M University OAKtrust Digitial Repository by clicking on the links below.

Click here to access a list of modules that align with the writing intensive courses in the Texas A&M University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

This project was supported by Higher Education Challenge Grant no. 2017-70003-26386 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

Communications and Decision-Making Curriculum for Students, Faculty and Employers in the Agricultural Sciences

Professionals need more soft skills preparation to be successful in food, agricultural, natural resources, and human sciences careers. Fueling the Mind, Feeding the World: Delivering Communication and Decision-Making Curricula to Secondary Agricultural Education Students was funded by USDA’s National Institute for Food and Agriculture to develop soft skills curriculum for high school agricultural education students and teachers.

The curriculum focus on Crawford et al.’s (2011) seven communication characteristics and seven decision-making characteristics. The primary audience of the curriculum is high school agricultural education students and teachers, but the curriculum is suitable for community college and university students and faculty in the agricultural sciences as well as food, agricultural, natural resources, and human sciences employers.

You can access the Fueling the Mind, Feeding the World: Delivering Communication and Decision-Making Curricula to Secondary Agricultural Education Students collection on the Texas A&M University OAKtrust Digitial Repository by clicking here, or you can access and download the individual curriculum packages, including the module and face-to-face instruction packet, by clicking on the link within each citation. You also can access only the online module by clicking on the Adobe Articulate link below each citation.

The Articulate Link is a version of the module that resides on the Articulate Server and is a complete preview of the modules. Be aware, however, that you can use the Articulate link to access the modules, but it will not capture quiz scores.  To capture quiz scores, you must use the online module zip file provided at the library URL.

Communications Curriculum

Decision-Making Curriculum

This project was supported by the Secondary Education, Two-Year Postsecondary Education, and Agriculture in the K-12 Classroom Challenge Grants Program no. 2019-38414-30265 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.