University of Missouri
IN-27: Innovation D

With significant advances in the science of agroforestry over the last 20 years, ongoing agroforestry education programs for natural resource professionals have fostered awareness of the opportunities to combine productivity, profitability and environmental stewardship. However, agroforestry is not yet represented in secondary education environments. A growing number of Missouri’s agriculture students, increasing from 13,325 in 1985 to 28,664 in 2015, are exposed to agricultural focus areas that guide their life-long career paths. More than half of these students will pursue an agricultural profession after high school. This project, a collaboration between the University of Missouri (MU) Center for Agroforestry (UMCA), MU Dept. of Agriculture Education and Leadership, and the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) with FFA, will provide six 2-day Agroforestry Summer Institutes to train 90 high school Missouri agriculture educators between 2017 and 2019. Missouri’s FFA curriculum development groups are currently redesigning the Agriculture Science II course, which will include an experience-based six-module agroforestry unit (at least one-week duration during the school year) that will integrate sustainable land use models exemplified by agroforestry into the foundational education of young farmers and agriculture professionals. However, educator delivery of an agroforestry curriculum depends on educator understanding of the curriculum material. To prepare educators to use this new curriculum for the advancement of their students’ professional applications of sustainable agriculture, an Agroforestry Summer Institute will be created to prepare educators with the tools and materials needed to teach the agroforestry unit in their high school Agriculture Science II classes.

https://projects.sare.org/sare_project/enc16-154/ https://harc.missouri.edu/2016/08/reaching-out/ https://cafnr.missouri.edu/2016/10/filling-in-the-gaps/