Inspiring the Next Generation of Agronomists through New Biofuel Educational Resources.

With the population facing pressing issues such as the necessity to sustainably increase our food and fiber production and generate alternative renewable fuel sources, the demand for future agronomist is in the rise. However, with the shift to a more urban and suburban population, fewer and fewer students grow up on farms. In this scenario, where would the next generation of agronomists come from? Contributions from current graduate students in colleges of agriculture can be invaluable in communicating and inspiring science in youth. However, historically they have not been trained for this purpose. At the same time, school educators and youth rarely, if ever, maintain any kind of scholarly relationship with these graduate students. The gap between K-12 and higher education systems is still noticeable and the Graduate Extension Scholars program in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech aims to bridge this gap. Through this program, new educational resources were collaboratively developed by an agronomy graduate student, a 4-H Agent, and a secondary agriculture teacher to introduce elementary, secondary and homeschooling students to emerging research in agronomy. Through a mixture of lectures, hands-on activities, and field-based research applications, students learn about the potential of using annual crops for biofuel production and related potential environmental impacts. Short, mid and long-term outcomes pertaining to all participants involved have been proposed to be studied in this experiment. Preliminary outcomes indicate short-term benefits achieved in the lapse of two to three months of work that were positively transferred to all parties involved in this study. This project has the potential to inspire the next generation of agronomists working in sustainable agriculture.