Tag Archive for: climate

New Technologies for Ag Extension 2023-2024 Yearbook Now Available in the Extension Foundation Library

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The New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) 2023-2024 Yearbook is now available as the latest addition to the Extension Foundation’s publications library. This vibrant publication captures the progress of dozens of projects funded through the New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE)  program—a cooperative initiative between the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA), the University of New Hampshire, and the Extension Foundation.

NTAE’s mission is to incubate, accelerate, and expand promising work that enhances the impact of the Cooperative Extension System (CES) in communities nationwide. It also provides scalable models that can be adopted or adapted by Extension teams across the U.S.

Spanning 72 pages and presented in an engaging, magazine-style format, the Yearbook offers a comprehensive look at how NTAE-funded projects are transforming human, environmental, and community well-being. The publication also highlights an NTAE-supported technology initiative focusing on artificial intelligence. Through illustrated feature articles, Q&A interviews, and embedded videos, readers will explore innovative efforts across key themes, including technology, climate resilience, youth development, health, and equity.

Additionally, the Yearbook highlights the critical work of ECOP’s Program Action Teams, showcasing how these teams contribute to advancing the Cooperative Extension System’s priorities.

The Extension Foundation’s library houses an extensive collection of resources, with topics ranging from technology to strengthening the resilience of farms and rural communities. Explore the entire library here and sign up to receive notifications about future publications.

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Extension Professionals Unite at Historic Climate Action Convening

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“The Extension system is a catalyst for climate science by helping people adopt practical applications for climate actions for their farms, families, communities, and businesses. This convening demonstrated those strengths at every turn, bringing together Extension professionals from every region, from every type of Land-grant university: 1862, 1892, and 1994 institutions, and from all career stages (faculty to county educators/agents). Through individual brainstorming, group discussions, and action planning, participants at the Climate Action Convening identified specific outcomes they will work to deliver, along with the inputs, outputs, and actions needed to achieve those bold promises. 

With their deep community connections, Extension professionals understand how the power of human-centered collaboration – underpinned with research-based approaches to deliver practical everyday applications – help people adapt, mitigate, and build resilience to a changing climate, allowing individuals organizations, and communities to thrive.”

                                        – Dr. Jason Henderson, Climate PAT Co-Chair

 

As an atmospheric river intensified by climate change bore down on the West Coast, more than 40 Extension professionals from across the U.S. and outlying territories gathered in Tucson, Arizona for Cooperative Extension’s first national Climate Action Convening. 

A central question guiding the gathering was: “How can we mobilize the U.S. Cooperative Extension system to quickly and effectively contribute to climate change solutions?

Hosted by the Extension Committee on Organization and Policy’s Climate Program Action Team (Climate PAT), the event’s primary objectives were to:

  • Gather and strengthen the network of climate-focused leaders in Cooperative Extension,
  • Formulate a climate action plan that will empower Extension, and
  • Provide CES with direction to seek funding to develop climate change programs. 

The Climate Action Convening was a coordinated effort between Climate PAT leadership team members, with the Extension Foundation providing support. The planning team included Climate PAT Co-Chairs, Roy Beckford (University of Vermont) and Jason Henderson (Iowa State University), Sylvie Brouder (Purdue University), Laura Edwards (South Dakota State University), Ros McCann (Utah State University), and Carrie McKillip (University of Illinois). This convening was supported through a USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Grants Program award number 2024-67019-41467, Foundational and Applied Science Program 2023-08732. Iowa State University Extension provided additional funding through a generous sponsorship. 

The gathering brought together individuals from 1862, 1890, and 1994 institutions and leaders from the USDA. Through focused conversations, participants identified opportunities in three areas where Extension is uniquely suited to deliver climate change adaptation and mitigation solutions: communities, natural resources, and working lands. 

Virtual Pre-Conference Events and Responsive Planning Created a Successful In-Person Gathering

The planning committee held two virtual events before the convening, featuring presentations from climate change experts and grounding discussions designed to orient attendees to the purpose and desired outcomes. Participants shared their goals for the convening, which enabled organizers to optimize the event to deliver on those objectives. 

At the in-person event, participants broke into groups focused on communities, natural resources, and working lands. Facilitators guided attendees through activities designed to capture co-created insights and identify areas of opportunity.

Using Insights and Feedback to Create a Climate Action Plan

Using insights gathered at the Climate Action Convening, Extension Foundation and collaborators will co-create a series of logic models. These logic models will be incorporated into a white paper about the outcomes Extension believes it is best positioned to achieve through active and new climate programs, projects, and resources. The anticipated release date for the white paper is Spring 2024.

The white paper will be accompanied by a communications plan that answers this question: “How might Extension best communicate about its climate change vision – specifically, the ways in which Extension can be a solution – both internally and externally?”  The communications plan will include a combination of key messages, processes, and strategies. The materials are being drafted by Nate Birt, the 2024 Climate PAT Fellow. Birt shared, “It is encouraging and exciting to see leaders across Extension coming together for climate action by co-creating key outcomes they can work toward. Extension has unparalleled scientific, outreach, and engagement expertise and a proven track record of multi-stakeholder collaboration and measurable positive impact.”

Finally, a distribution strategy will articulate intended processes for soliciting feedback on the white paper and the communications plan. This will ensure that Extension professionals – those who attended the convening, and many who did not – are able to quickly begin making progress toward the outcomes identified in the white paper. 

Future convenings are envisioned to maintain and build momentum. They will bring Extension professionals together to assess progress, identify opportunities, and communicate to USDA and other key partners and funders about the work underway and the impact it is having. If you’re interested in learning more, please contact Regan Emmons, Climate Partnership and Development Assistant, at climatepat@extension.org

Key Takeaways

There was consensus that this moment represents a key window of opportunity for Extension to make climate impact and to secure significant investment to advance these outcomes. Collectively, participants identified nine climate change outcomes that they feel the overall system is best positioned to work toward. 

One participant noted: 

“This was a historical convening as it included representatives from the 1860s, 1890s, and 1994s PLUS key leaders from USDA. These key leaders – Bill [Hohenstien], Kevin [Kephart], Lynne [Knight], and Adam [Wilke] – not only presented but remained throughout the convening and actively participated in the ideation and group discussions.

The planning committee and Extension Foundation did an exceptional job taking this enormous task and developing a format that required individual participation and “presence.” These individuals also set the tone for respectful sharing of ideas and concerns, and facilitated the groups with patience and focus on the outcomes. A superb job by all involved! Thank you for making this happen and for your leadership on our next steps.”

 

Another participant said,

“I went in with few expectations but many hopes. I think the planning committee did an excellent job of guiding the conversations, with emphasis on the overall conversation. My primary hope was that we could find enough agreement to move forward with the findings of the convening. I believe we did and will.”

 

Dive Deeper

The Climate PAT has developed a suggested reading list, which was shared with Climate Action Convening participants. Click the links below to learn more.

 

Related Reading:

The Extension Foundation suggests these titles from its Publications Library:

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ICYMI, #GoodReads from Extension Foundation

The Extension Foundation has recently released several new titles on a broad range of topics, from climate and extreme weather to building farm and farm family resilience. Check out our bookshelf to learn more about the work other Extension professionals are doing. 

ICYMI, here are a few recent titles that may interest you.

Sustainable Tourism, Agritourism, Outdoor Recreation, and Community Development. Our newest title is The NET Effect. This 57-page ezine contains eight case studies that explore innovative Cooperative Extension and Sea Grant work in sustainable tourism and outdoor recreation. It features programs from Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, and West Virginia. This magazine is an outcome of a partnership of the National Extension Tourism (NET) design team, the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development (NERCRD), and the New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) grant program. 

Climate and Extreme Weather. Many of us are considering how our Extension programs can help our clientele adapt to/mitigate the effects of a changing climate and extreme weather events. This report contains a national inventory of Cooperative Extension programs and practices in climate and extreme weather. In addition, it offers Extension educators and upper administration insight regarding successes, challenges, and gaps in programming. 

Program Planning and Team Building. If you’re planning Extension programs, take a peek at Engaged Program Planning for Extension Foundation Impact Collaborative Teams. This publication provides context and guidance on community engagement and team building using the Impact Collaborative methodology. The Impact Collaborative helps Cooperative Extension projects, programs, and initiatives be innovative and community-engaged efforts that result in measurable and visible local impact. Whether you are looking to improve an existing program or expand your reach to new audiences, this publication has ideas to help you develop community-based approaches to problem-solving. 

Digital Communications, Social Media, and Content Strategy. Are you thinking about how to communicate your Extension story? What about social media and digital communications? This publication features content contributed and curated by Extension professionals from around the country. You’ll find perspective pieces about technology use in Extension and practical information about specific social media platforms, SEO, and content strategy.

You can find the entire library of publications here. 

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ICYMI – Recommended Summer Reading from Extension Foundation

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The Extension Foundation has recently released several new and previously published titles on various topics, from climate and extreme weather to building farm and farm family resilience. Check out our bookshelf to learn more about what other Extension professionals are doing in their work. 

ICYMI, here are a few recent titles that may interest you.

Program Planning and Team Building: If you’re using the summer to plan upcoming Extension programs, take a peek at Engaged Program Planning for Extension Foundation Impact Collaborative Teams. This publication provides context and guidance on community engagement and team building using the Impact Collaborative methodology. The Impact Collaborative is a methodology that helps Cooperative Extension projects, programs, and initiatives to be innovative and community-engaged efforts that result in measurable and visible local impact. Whether your team is looking to improve an existing program or expand its reach to new audiences, the Impact Collaborative process, engagements, and activities provide project teams with tools to develop innovative, community-based approaches to problem-solving. Learn more about the upcoming Impact Collaborative, an entirely virtual event slated for October 4th-6th, 2022. 

 

Digital Communications: Thinking about how to communicate your Extension story? This publication features curated and original content contributed by Extension professionals from around the country. You’ll find perspective pieces about technology use in Extension and practical information about specific social media platforms, SEO, and content strategy that will enable you to apply what they’ve learned and to take action.

 

Climate and Extreme Weather: Many of us are considering how our Extension programs can help our clientele adapt to/mitigate the effects of a changing climate and extreme weather events. This report contains a national inventory of Cooperative Extension programs and practices in climate and extreme weather. It offers Extension educators and upper administration insight regarding successes, challenges, and gaps in programming. 

 

You can find the entire library of publications (now numbering more than two dozen) here. New publications are released regularly, so please check back often.

 

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Extension Foundation & National Extension Climate Initiative Request Entry of Climate & Extreme Weather Programs to National Registry

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In 2020, select members of the National Extension Climate Initiative (NECI) steering committee served in a fellowship through the Extension Foundation to identify existing work across Cooperative Extension in the area of climate and extreme weather. Their research resulted in the 2020 report on Extension Climate/Extreme Weather Programming. 

In a continued partnership, NECI worked with the Extension Foundation on the development of Climate & Extreme Weather program questions for inclusion in the National Registry of Cooperative Extension Programs and Assets. By using the National Registry, NECI is able to gather more information about climate programs to achieve a real-time landscape assessment of existing efforts in order to help enable Extension leaders to rapidly respond to system-wide funding opportunities.

The Extension Foundation and NECI invite all Cooperative Extension climate and extreme weather programs to register at extension.org/registry. 

About the National Registry of Cooperative Extension Programs and Assets

This work is supported in part by New Technologies for Ag Extension grant no. 2020-41595-30123 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Launched in 2021, the National Registry of Cooperative Extension Programs & Assets enables Cooperative Extension professionals to register their projects, programs, or curriculum for nationwide collaboration among Cooperative Extension colleagues.

  • The intent of this tool is to assist Extension professionals to quickly find other like-programming efforts across the system to reduce duplication of work, and help speed up access to digital assets that would be useful to the development of new programs.
  • At the request of Extension leaders, the NRCEPA provides ready-access to a living database of efforts across the system in order to rapidly respond to system-wide funding opportunities.

Features:

  • When registering a project, program, or curriculum, users are invited to add any digital assets they feel may be helpful to their peers nationally for download. This includes evaluation tools, images, videos, text for campaigns, and more.
  • Auto-segments Cooperative Extension programs by program area including Ag & Natural Resources, 4-H/Youth Development, FACS, Community Development, Immunization Education, and Urban Extension.
  • After submitting your program, project, or curriculum to the registry, you’ll be able to return anytime to make updates.
  • Dynamic search helps users find what they need quickly by keyword.

Current Partners:

  • National Extension Climate Initiative
  • National Urban Extension Leaders

Become a Partner:

The Extension Foundation partners with national Cooperative Extension organizations to focus information captured about Extension projects, programs, and curriculums in the National Registry. New question pathways are created in partnership with these organizations to help obtain the most relevant information. 

We invite Cooperative Extension organizations to partner with us and lead the identification of questions most relevant to their program areas. Please reach out to us at contact-us@extension.org.

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eXtension Announces Four New Climate/Extreme Weather Fellows

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eXtension has selected four Cooperative Extension professionals to serve as Climate/Extreme Weather Fellows for 2020. Building on their existing work, the Fellows will lead teams of graduate and undergraduate students that will pull together resources across Extension related to Climate and Extreme Weather to create a landscape view of Extension programs and a system-wide repository. A request will go out shortly to the entire system for resources and information to add to the repository. 

These individuals include:

  • Dr. Sarah Klain, Andrew J. Senti Assistant Professor of Ecosystem Services, Environment & Society Department, Utah State University
  • M. Jennison Kipp Searcy, Resource Economist, University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences
  • Dr. Paul Lachapelle, Professor, Department of Political Science, Montana State University – Bozeman, Extension Community Development Specialist
  • Dr. Roslynn McCann, Associate Professor, Sustainable Communities Extension Specialist, Utah State University

Cooperative Extension is positioned to be the leading national resource with the most experience with on-the-ground implementation of conservation-based programming. The eXtension Climate Coalition, a member director-led effort, created a Fellowship as a short-term project dedicated to the compilation of program data across the Cooperative Extension System (CES).  The fellows will identify programming that is currently being implemented that aligns with Project Drawdown, other frameworks, and generally accepted conservation practices. Using eXtension support, the Fellows will develop a repository for this information that can help the CES develop a narrative around the work being performed across the U.S. The repository will be dynamic, accessible, and easy for specialists, program leaders, agents and educators to update and add to. Information will include programs, success factors, and adoption rates. It will be used to help:

 

  • Identify gaps in conservation/climate programming
  • Identify areas of greatest impact (or identify trends)
  • Help us identify measurements of acceleration
  • Focus CES interests on identified climate/extreme weather actions (solutions)
  • Help CES tell our story around climate/extreme weather programs (we will have an opportunity to seek funding and partners based on our current and future capacity)
  • Help identify where we are accelerating our impact the most
  • Empower CES Educators to align with these programs and their strengths
  • Allow for some longitudinal analysis
  • Foster some alignment in CES programming across the country 

About the Fellows (Photos will be included)

Sarah Klain is the Andrew J. Senti Assistant Professor of Ecosystem Services in the Environment and Society department at Utah State University. She has a PhD in Resources, Environment and Sustainability from the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on the tangible and intangible ways in which people value ecosystems, particularly in the context of expanding renewable energy landscapes. Much of her past research focused on cultural ecosystem services, marine spatial planning and offshore wind farms. Currently, she is developing participatory research to integrate traditional ecological knowledge and western science in the context of climate-smart restoration in the Intermountain West. She teaches courses on environmental policy and ecological economics and serves as a handling editor for the journals People and Nature as well as Ecosystems and People. As an interdisciplinary sustainability scholar, her work contributes to the fields of ecological economics and conservation social science.

Jennison Kipp Searcy is an Ecological Economist and Sustainable Communities Extension Specialist with the University of Florida’s Program for Resource Efficient Communities (PREC) and Center for Land Use Efficiency (CLUE). In this position, she collaborates with multidisciplinary research teams and private- and public-sector partners throughout the state to facilitate the adoption of strategic, holistic, and integrated sustainability practices in Florida’s new master-planned community developments. She is also State Coordinator of the Sustainable FloridiansSM Program and a co-founder of Florida’s CIVIC (Community Voices, Informed Choices) Extension Program. Climate-related research and Extension programming have been unifying and enduring elements of Jennison’s professional career. She holds Master’s degrees in Agricultural & Environmental Economics and Environmental Pollution Control from Penn State University (where her research contributed to the Mid-Atlantic Regional Assessment of Climate Change Impacts) and served in Kenya as an Agroforestry Extension Volunteer with the U.S. Peace Corps (where she saw and experienced first-hand some of Earth’s most priceless and rapidly disappearing equatorial glaciers).

Paul Lachapelle is Professor in the Department of Political Science at Montana State University-Bozeman and serves as the Extension Community Development Specialist.  His teaching and research spans many disciplines and practices including community climate change resiliency, diversity and  inclusion, social impact investing and social justice topics.  His publications include the edited book, “Addressing Climate Change at the Community Level” (Routledge 2019) as well as journal articles on energy impacts in communities, democratic practice and local governance, and community visioning and leadership.  He earned a Ph.D. (Forestry) at the University of Montana’s College of Forestry and Conservation with a focus on natural resource policy and governance and serves as Editor of the Community Development Society Current Issues Book Series and member of the Board of Directors (and past-President) of the International Association for Community Development.

Dr. Roslynn Brain McCann is a Sustainable Communities Extension Specialist in the Department of Environment and Society, College of Natural Resources at Utah State University. She uses conservation theory, communication techniques, and social marketing tools to foster environmental behaviors in the areas of land (conservation, reducing, reusing and recycling), air (quality and climate change), food (consuming locally with a focus on CSA’s and farmer’s markets), water (quality, quantity, water resilient landscaping), and energy (efficiency and renewable energy). Roslynn also teaches communicating sustainability, helps facilitate the National Extension Sustainability Summit, runs a national database of sustainability-focused Extension programs, and is the coordinator for Utah Farm-Chef-Fork, the USU Permaculture Initiative, and Sustainable You! kids’ camps.

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eXtension RFP for Climate/Extreme Weather Fellowship

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Cooperative Extension is positioned to be the leading national resource with the most experience with on-the-ground implementation of conservation-based programming. The eXtension Climate Coalition proposes creating a Fellowship effort as a short-term project dedicated to the compilation of program data across the Cooperative Extension System (CES).  The fellow(s), which could be one or two, will identify programming that is currently being implemented that aligns with Project Drawdown, other frameworks, and generally accepted conservation practices. Using eXtension support, the Fellow(s) will develop a repository for this information that can help the CES develop a narrative around the work being performed across the US. The repository will be dynamic, accessible, and easy for specialists, program leaders, agents and educators to update and add to. Information will include programs, success factors, and adoption rates. It will be used to help: 

  • Identify gaps in conservation/climate programming
  • Identify areas of greatest impact (or identify trends)
  • Help us identify measurements of acceleration
  • Focus CES interests on identified climate/extreme weather actions (solutions)
  • Help us tell our story around climate/extreme weather action (we will have an opportunity to seek funding and partners based on our current and future capacity)
  • Help identify where we are accelerating our impact the most
  • Empower CES Educators to align with these actions and their strengths
  • Allow for some longitudinal analysis
  • Create some continuity in our programming across the country

Deliverables: 

The Fellow(s) will lead: 

  • Offering of at least one synchronous online professional development opportunity and use of the connect.eXtension.org social intranet platform. 
  • Development and population of the Climate/Extreme Weather repository
  • Documenting current CES programs and practices in Climate/Extreme Weather and
  • Serve as the editor of Version 1 of the Real-Time Programmatic Inventory in Extension Education ePub to be published with eXtension no later than September 1, 2020. The eXtension ePub plus Connect.extension.org is a digital platform for aggregating content, tools and engagement available to all professionals in Cooperative Extension.

Responsibilities:

  • Serve in the role of editor of the ePub Version 1 and identify a review group and authors/contributors and follow the publication guidelines of eXtension. eXtension provides technical assistance and serves as publisher of the ePub. 
  • Work with eXtension to establish a 6-8 person working group of professionals within and outside Cooperative Extension to serve as an advisory committee/editorial board. Schedule the working group to help gather and curate existing research, programs and best practices using eXtension technologies.
  • Develop a timeline with milestones for the project. A suggested time frame for this project is May through August. Aiming to have the final draft completed by September 1 for broader sharing and feedback. 
  • Report on progress to eXtension regularly.
  • Offer at least 1 online professional development opportunity in the form of a webinar for Extension professionals.
  • Establish a group in Connect Extension and use it to keep in touch with the working group, the Advisory Committee and eFieldbook contributors.
  • eXtension provides technical assistance and serves as the publisher of the ePub, and data repository development and implementation. eXtension also provides technical support and marketing for professional development offerings.  

 

Compensation:   Proposals should address how they will utilize $20,000 in the Climate/Extreme Weather Fellowship effort to support the overall work.  The $20K will be to accomplish the deliverables.  Examples of possibilities include two faculty/specialists applying together and receiving stipends of $10K each to share the effort (this could be faculty at one or two institutions); one faculty/specialist receiving a stipend of 5K to oversee and guide the work of a doctoral or master’s candidate who would receive a $15K stipend. 

Reporting: The Fellow(s) will report to Megan Hirschman, eXtension Partnership and Development Specialist.  eXtension will provide $20,000 in total to support this work to the Fellow or the Fellow’s institution, depending on the best way to handle the funds for the institution. 

Timeline: 

Deadline for proposals: May 6, 2020

Start Date: May 20, 2020.

Project End Date: September 30, 2020.  This project is not static, and the philosophy will be to have 80-90% completion by September 1, and have an opportunity to introduce it to the Extension Committee on Organization and Policy (ECOP) at that time.  

Submit proposals (500 words or less)  and supporting documentation (resume) to:

Megan Hirschman
Partnership and Development Specialist
eXtension Foundation
Cell: 989-330-1265
meganhirschman@extension.org

 

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This website is supported in part by New Technologies for Ag Extension (funding opportunity no. USDA-NIFA-OP-010186), grant no. 2023-41595-41325 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the Extension Foundation.

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