IN THIS Q&A, members of four NTAE teams talk about the role that Extension and their programs can play in climate change education. We’ll hear from the following:
Vanessa Venturini
Daniel McDonald
Katherine Speirs Associate State Specialist &
Amanda Missimer Clinical Assistant Professor
Jimmy Doyle Diversified Ag Field Specialist South Dakota State University
Laura Edwards Extension State Climatologist South Dakota State University
State Program Leader, Master Gardener Program & Food
Extension Specialist, Professor/Director Take Charge America Institute University of Arizona
Associate Professor University of Arizona
University of Rhode Island
Recovery for Rhode Island University of Rhode Island
Talk about how your project started and what the early work has been or will be.
McDonald: It started for me last summer at our annual Extension conference, when we had a facilitated discussion with family, consumer, and health science professionals about climate change and how it is impacting their pro- gramming and the clientele they work with. I got inter- ested in how we can provide resources to better help our colleagues in this area. Speirs: Dan McDonald and I are partnering on this project. Once we’ve identified the programs that are out there, we’ll do some work to describe them. What ages are they appropriate for? How long do they last? Where are they designed to be taught? We’ll also look to see if there’s evaluation and evidence for their effectiveness. We’re very excited—we’ve already started to connect with colleagues in Arizona and beyond. Doyle: I hope to develop a comprehensive risk evaluation and adaptation tool to help producers at all scales adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate change. Producers will move through a series of phases that assess the cur- rent state of their operations and how they are performing in relation to several climate risk metrics, with a goal of creating a customized education plan recommending actions and outcomes. This year we’re planning, trying to get our feet under us, getting feedback from producers, our Extension colleagues, and external partners. We’re making a lot of progress and hope to have a pilot program ready in early 2025.
Edwards: Our funded project with the Extension Foun- dation NTAE grant is to hold a North Central Climate and Agriculture Conference. I am on the leadership team of the North Central Climate Collaborative (NC3), which received the grant, and this conference opportunity ties in well with our goals of educating, empowering, and en- abling our region’s Extension professionals with the hopes that they will go on to pursue and lead climate program- ming in their local areas (counties, regions, or states. Missimer: I developed the “Food Recovery for Rhode Island” program, a train-the-trainer model that draws in key concepts from the Master Gardener and Expanded Food and Nutrition Education programs. We’ve offered the program four times, training a diverse group of partici- pants, including undergraduates, retirees, and the state food strategist. Participants complete a 40-hour internship with our community partners in food recovery efforts across the state. Any state that wants to use this program will have the ability to use our surveys, which means we could aggregate data and see what impacts we’re having on food recovery nationwide. Venturini : The internship has allowed participants to contribute to collective change by volunteering with orga- nizations that are increasing access to food while reducing food waste. In a world where food insecurity and climate change are major concerns, this program can address both. And really, it works in any setting.
The North Central Climate Collaborative, a multistate Extension team that provides professional development and networking opportunities, held a conference in late summer 2024 for Extension professionals who want to learn about and deliver educational programming on climate change and water quality in agriculture. Project lead Laura Edwards is pictured here, in the center.
SURVEY SAYS Attendees at the summer 2024 North Central Climate Collaborative conference were asked about their intentions to use what they learned.
90% indicated they would use the information from the conference for professional development. 74% indicated they’d use the information for educational programming. Other responses indicated that the information would be used for community planning, farm management, and regulation and policy discussions.
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2023-2024 YEARBOOK | EXTENSION FOUNDATION/NTAE
EXTENSION FOUNDATION/NTAE | 2023-2024 YEARBOOK
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