I was recently asked by a local school district to consult about STEM Careers in Agriculture for a mobile bus that will feature those among other career paths in STEM. Since I pulled these resources, I thought I would share them in a blog post.
One thought I had – if you’re working with elementary students (or frankly, even middle schoolers), the jobs of the future may not be things we’ve envisioned yet. I think that message might be a cool one to include overall …
Another tip is to make all of these as locally-relevant as possible. Also think about your state’s agricultural universities and educational institutions and where they might have branches near you. Here’s a list of land-grant institutions – don’t forget that some may be HBCUs such as FAMU in Florida or Tribal Colleges and Institutions. UF and FAMU have several campuses or facilities throughout the state:
UF – UF/IFAS Research and Education centers, UF Jacksonville, and UF Innovation Center in Sarasota are just a few (yes, engineering is absolutely a career path for agriculture!).
And almost every county and territory throughout the U.S. has an ag Extension office for even more local connections.
Here are some sites to explore about careers in STEM in ag, with some of my thoughts.
https://growyoungminds.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/STEM-Career-list-handout.pdf – this handout is kinda cool but might be outdated (or would be by the time especially younger kids graduate!) – maybe you could re-work it to have some “what do you think the jobs of the future could be” section they could fill in …
https://www.seeag.org/stem-career-pathways-in-ag – could make some connections to local folks in the industry to highlight.
Here’s a doc I wrote about emphasizing STEM in Ag that may also be useful: https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/WC184 – plus see the link within to a previous document that cross-linked the NGSS standards with ag standards.
Another thing that it’s (in my mind) never to early to suggest/think about is helping kids think about how to get to these careers – like, take math classes and science classes, especially bio and chem. Explore internships or volunteering, etc. Talk to your teachers and adults about wanting to get into these jobs (networking for elementary school students lol!).
I also think it’s super important to always emphasize the processes and practices of science/STEM not just the “facts”.
And just for fun – if it’s useful to you or any colleagues, this is a relatively new resource for learning to teach about ag: https://agliteracy.org/alc/
And my own courses on Facilitating STEM for all Learners can be found here: https://ifas-engagestem.catalog.instructure.com/
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