Curriculum for Advanced Applicator Technicians

高级应用技术人员通过喷雾、粉尘、蒸汽、土壤结合或化学应用来混合和/或应用杀虫剂、除草剂、杀菌剂或杀虫剂。这些工作对现代农业至关重要，因为它们有助于确保农民和农业管理公司获得丰收。随着农业部门继续现代化，并变得更加精准，应用技术员职位也在现代化，现在需要更多的技术专门知识和培训。由于缺乏合格的候选人人才库，农业企业组织往往难以填补申请者的职位。社区大学的现有课程是为普通农业技术人员或设备技术人员设计的，并没有专门针对施药技术人员所需的专业知识。该项目的目标是通过培养高技能技术人员并为伊利诺伊州的教育发展创造途径来满足这一关键部门的教育和培训需求。该项目将创建四门新课程、一个专业证书课程和一个为期两年的应用科学副学士学位，为学生和现有工人成为高级应用技术人员的职业生涯做好准备。这些证书的创建建立在之前通过Parkland的NSF-ATE资助的精准农业课程增强项目开发的精准农业课程工作的基础上。此外，该项目将与高中和行业建立关系，以增加对应用技术员部门的了解和兴趣，从而促进区域劳动力管道。该项目还将寻求提高退伍军人在精准农业部门的代表性，以确保农业企业拥有多样化的劳动力。该项目由高级技术教育计划资助，该计划专注于为推动国家经济的先进技术领域培养技术人员。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Advanced Applicator Technicians mix and/or apply pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, or insecticides through sprays, dusts, vapors, soil incorporation, or chemical applications. These jobs are critical for the modern agriculture industry as they help ensure strong yields for farmers and agriculture management companies. As the agriculture sector continues to modernize and become more precision-based, the Applicator Technician position is also modernizing and now requires greater technical expertise and training. Due to the shortage of a qualified candidate pool, agribusiness organizations often struggle to fill applicator positions. Existing programs at community colleges are designed for either general agriculture or equipment technicians and do not specifically address the specialized knowledge required by an Applicator Technician. The goal of this project is to meet the educational and training needs of this critical sector by preparing highly skilled technicians and creating pathways for educational advancement in the state of Illinois.The project will create four new courses, a professional certificate program, and a two-year Associate of Applied Science degree to prepare students and incumbent workers for careers as Advanced Applicator Technicians. The creation of these credentials builds on previously developed precision agriculture coursework through Parkland's prior NSF-ATE funded Precision Agriculture Curriculum Enhancement project. Additionally, the project will build relationships with high schools and industries, to increase understanding and interest in the Applicator Technician sector, thus contributing to a regional workforce pipeline. The project will also seek to improve the representation of veterans in the precision agriculture sector to ensure agribusiness industries have a diverse workforce. This project is funded by the Advanced Technological Education program that focuses on the education of technicians for the advanced-technology fields that drive the nation's economy.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.