Grow with Rhodes: Expanding Awareness of Agriculture Technology Careers and Pathways

该项目旨在通过向STEM高中学生，特别是女性及其教师介绍现代农业，作为俄亥俄州西北部可行的STEM职业选择，为国家利益服务。STEM领域的部门，如计算机科学和传统的工程学科，更熟悉高中生作为职业选择，但农业技术通常只被一小部分传统的农场青年考虑。除了教育STEM/农业学生，他们的教师和辅导员，谁是学生的教育和职业选择的影响力，应该对这个可行的行业部门进行教育，使他们能够证明和谈论它的学生。现代农业设备包括复杂的机器人、传感器、人工智能、机器学习和数据处理软件，旨在收集田间数据，以提高生产力、提高盈利能力和维持环境。 该设备缺少操作、汇编现场数据和做出管理决策所需的精通技术的技术人员。该项目旨在创建职业特定的Ag Tech职业途径材料，并为STEM高中学生及其教师提供现场和课堂上的实践经验，目的是提高现代农业作为可行职业选择的意识，因此值得STEM学生认真考虑作为职业。STEM/农业教师将了解行业，职业和先进技术。参与者将使用该技术来解决罗兹研究所的实际营养管理问题，从而使STEM原则与农业之间建立直接联系。研究所将鼓励STEM教师根据研究所的问题/解决方案集创建自己的教学模块，并在自己的高中课堂上教授。该项目还将通过将该技术引入高中来帮助STEM教师向学生教授他们的研究所模块，从而使学生能够使用技术和数据将STEM学科概念与农业联系起来，从而培养对农业职业的兴趣。计划实施一项青年妇女农业指导方案，鼓励STEM青年妇女选择农业作为职业。这些活动将成为其他机构的榜样。该项目由先进技术教育计划资助，该计划侧重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价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project aims to serve the national interest by introducing modern agriculture to STEM high school students, especially females, and their teachers, as a viable STEM career choice in northwest Ohio. STEM-field sectors, such as computer science and traditional engineering disciplines, are more familiar to high school students as a career choice, but agriculture technology is typically only considered by a small population of traditional farm youth. In addition to educating STEM/Agriculture students, their teachers and counselors, who are influential in students' education and career choices, should be educated about this viable industry sector so they can demonstrate and speak about it to students. Modern agriculture equipment includes sophisticated robotics, sensors, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data manipulation software designed to collect field data to increase productivity, raise profitability, and sustain the environment. This equipment is missing a tech-savvy workforce of technicians needed to operate, compile field data, and make management decisions. This project is designed to create career-specific Ag Tech career pathway materials and provide hands-on experiences in the field and in the classroom for both STEM high school students and their teachers with the goal of increasing awareness of modern agriculture as a viable career option, thus meriting serious consideration as a career by STEM students. STEM/Agriculture teachers will learn about the industry, careers, and advanced technology. Participants will use the technology to solve real-world nutrient management problems in the Grow with Rhodes Institute, allowing direct connections to be made between STEM principles and agriculture. The Institute will encourage STEM teachers to create their own teaching modules based on the Institute’s problem/solution sets and to teach it in their own high-school classrooms. The project will also foster interest in agriculture careers by bringing the technology to the high schools to assist STEM teachers in teaching their Institute module to their students, thus allowing students to use technology and data to connect STEM discipline concepts to agriculture. A Young Women in Agriculture mentoring program is planned to encourage STEM young women to choose agriculture as a career. These activities will serve as a model for other institutions. 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.