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High school graduates need more soft skills preparation to be successful in college majors and careers in food, agricultural, natural resources, and human sciences. 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 Secondary Education, Two-Year Postsecondary Education, and Agriculture in the K-12 Classroom Challenge Grants Program grant program in 2019.

Texas A&M University, Blinn College, and San Luis Obispo have collaborated to deliver enhanced context-specific communication and decision-making/problem-solving curricula to students enrolled in secondary agricultural education courses. In a Crawford, Lang, Fink, Dalton, and Fielitz’s (2011) study, students, faculty, alumni, and employers ranked communication and decision-making/problem-solving skills as the top two, most-desired soft skills. However, when rating students’ preparedness as it relates to soft skills, employers noted they were neither prepared nor unprepared. Therefore, the primary audience of FMFW is high school agricultural education students and teachers. The secondary audience is community college and university faculty and food, agricultural, natural resources, and human sciences employers.

The primary benefits for students and teachers are access to multidisciplinary, agricultural industry-driven, and adaptable curricula focused on formal soft-skill training at the high school level. More than 800,000 students are currently enrolled in formal agricultural education programs across the 50 states and three U.S. territories (National FFA Organization, 2018). In addition, there are nearly 11,000 middle and high school agricultural teachers seeking to provide quality instruction for students’ career and technical collegiate pursuits (NAAE, 2018). Providing adaptable, formal soft-skill curricula instruction is vital to enhancing human capital. Curricula will be distributed through the National Council of Agricultural Education, eXtension, and the National FFA Organization.

All of the modules generated as a part of this project are a part of the Lab’s Agriculture and Life Sciences Communications Curriculum database.

Read more about this project and the modules available for educators and students in the latest issue of The Agricultural Education Magazine.

This project is 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.

Balancing factual knowledge with engaging and open communication is critical to the development of effective policy formulation. Preparing Non-Profit Members To Communicate With Elected Officials was funded by T3: Texas A&M Triads for Transformation grant program in 2020.

By identifying gaps in professional sciences communications skills development curriculum available to non-profit organizations and testing the effectiveness of curriculum designed for these organization’s members, we can provide scientists with resources to communicate effectively with legislators and their staff to better inform policy development. To conduct the needs assessment with Texas-based non-profits and to develop effective science communications curriculum, we will use Baram-Tsabari and Lewenstein’s (2017) science communication learning goals model. In their 2017 work, they built a coherent definition, through extensive review of existing literature, of science communication, addressing affective
issues, content knowledge, methods, reflection, participation, and identity. By using this model to assess the sciences communications needs of non-profit member’s, we hope to learn what gaps exist in their current sciences communications curriculum to inform more holistic curricula with the hope of better preparing members of these organizations to advocate for themselves and their organizations’ interests.

This project was supported by the Texas A&M University President’s T3 Initiative.

Specialty crops, including vegetables, fruit, tree nuts and more, are an important component of agriculture in Texas. The Texas Department of Agriculture works to support over 2,700 growers across the state and create awareness among Texas consumers about specialty crops. The Meet a Farmer project is an informative photo journalistic essay project that introduces Texas consumers to local and regional Texas specialty crop producers. The photodocumentary images depicted producers doing what they do on a typical day on their specialty crop operation.

This project was supported by the USDA Foreign Agricultpractitioners, and consumers. Strengthening Communication Skills of Agricultural Students: Using Real-World Examples to Meet Industry Employment Needs was funded by USDA’s National Institute for Food and Agriculture Higher Education Challenge grant program in 2017.

The Texas A&M University project team developed and delivered seven reusable learning modules (RLMs) to enhance the human capital of food, animal, nutrition, and health sciences by meeting the employment needs of industry. The curriculum focus on Crawford et al.’s (2011) seven communication characteristics, using industry-specific examples and learning opportunities that allow students to reflect and compare their communication techniques with industry expectations. Each module is available as an RLM and as a face-to-face curriculum package. The modules are hosted on the Texas A&M University Libraries’ The OAKTrust Digital Repository, and you can access the curriculum by accessing the Science Communications Teaching Resources page.

All of the modules generated as a part of this project are a part of the Lab’s Agriculture and Life Sciences Communications Curriculum database.

• Norris, S., Leggette, H. R., Murphrey, T. P., Richburg, A., &; Bush, M. (2020, September). Science communication: Context-specific reusable learning modules for strengthening students’ communication skills. NACTA Journal, Teaching Tips. https://www.nactateachers.org/images/TeachingTips/TT_2020-0248.pdf. 
• Norris, S., Murphrey, T. P., & Leggette, H. R. (2019). Do they believe they can communicate? Assessing college students’ preparation for communicating about agricultural sciences. Journal of Agricultural Education, 60(4), 53–70. https://doi.org/10.5032/jae.2019.04053 

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.