The world's population is expected to more than double by 2050. As the productivity of traditional agriculture becomes compromised by urbanization and climate change, new methods of food production are needed. Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) is an emerging discipline that fosters year-round food production within local communities while reducing water use and transportation costs. However, the industry has struggled to thrive due to a limited skilled technical workforce. The proposed project aims to meet the needs of the CEA industry by creating an interdisciplinary certificate for students enrolled in agriculture, automation and robotics, business and entrepreneurship, and/or computer technology associate degree programs. To do so, the project team will develop four new CEA courses and provide professional development to upskill faculty in the technologies that set CEA apart from traditional agriculture. This effort will be supported by an engaged industry board representing horticulture industries, extension specialists, and economic development experts. The project expects to develop a strong CEA curriculum that is responsive to workforce needs and builds on targeted outreach that includes underrepresented minorities, women, and rural high school students. Consequently, the project can help ensure that the Nation maintains a well-prepared, diverse CEA workforce.
The project is designed to create a pipeline of well-educated technicians for the emerging CEA workforce. A skilled technical workforce is critical to the success of the CEA industry and one expert has predicted the need for 100,000 workers in the next decade. This project develop coursework in Aquaculture and Aquaponics, Automated and Smart Technologies, Integrated Facilities Management, and Project-based Study. These courses will use higher learning pedagogy that fosters interdisciplinary engagement of "ill-defined problems" to help students develop complex problem solving, higher-level thinking, and creative thinking skills. Project-based learning will expose students to real-world applications of smart-factory automation, growth of tilapia, and remote data collection and analysis. A virtual Internet of Things teaching platform utilizing webcasting equipment for online learning and remote access for data collection and monitoring of automated systems will give students a concrete advantage when entering the CEA workforce, where these technologies play a central role. The four new courses will be paired with agriculture classes already part of the Ivy Tech Community College system to create an interdisciplinary CEA Certificate. Professional development will be designed to upskill faculty who will teach these new and related courses at Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana, K-12 partners, and other community colleges across the country. All project products will be disseminated through a project website and national conference presentations. 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.
