process publication – Extension Foundation

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New Publication Available: Teaching Youth Food Safety – A Game-Based Approach

The Extension Foundation (EXF) has issued Teaching Youth Food Safety: A Game-Based Experience, a publication written by a team from the New Mexico State University Learning Games Lab.

The publication details how the team is addressing food safety through game-based learning. Their ideas ties into research that indicates youth prefer to learn about food safety topics through interactive educational tools. The publication details how the team developed “Theme Park Cafe”, a food safety game for youth. In the game, players engage in different themed kitchens to serve delicious and safe meals to clients. It’s a redesign of “Ninja Kitchen,” launched in 2011 to teach kids food handling skills. In this publication, the game designers talk about increasing the game’s cultural sensitivity, working with kids to create the reboot, and other elements of using gamification to teach educational content.

This new game, one of several food-related projects funded by the New Technologies in Ag Extension (NTAE) 2022-2023 grant program, is part of a growing trend in Extension: using multimedia products to educate and engage diverse audiences.

The authors of the publication are: Barbara Chamberlin, PhD; Matheus Cezarotto, PhD; and Pamela Martinez, Ed.D, all from New Mexico State University.

This publication was produced through the New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) program. NTAE is a cooperative agreement between USDA NIFA, Oklahoma State University, and the Extension Foundation. The goal of the New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) grant is to incubate, accelerate, and expand promising work that will increase the impact of the Cooperative Extension System (CES) in the communities it serves, and provide models that can be adopted or adapted by Extension teams across the nation.

You can learn more about the team’s work in this recent feature article – Leveling Up – published in October 2023. The team also wrote about an alternative to full game design – the game jam process – in an earlier publication. You can access that publication here.

The Extension Foundation has released two dozen publications this fall, including the 2022-2023 NTAE Yearbook, which presents the work of dozens of Extension project teams from across the U.S. in a lively magazine format. You can find the entire library of publications (now numbering nearly five dozen) here.

December 14, 2023/by Aaron Weibe

New Extension Foundation Publication: “Pumpkin Smash Playbook”

Extension, News, Publications

The Extension Foundation has released a new title. “Pumpkin Smash Playbook” shares how the University of Illinois Extension and community partners organize and host Pumpkin Smashes, fun community events that collect pumpkins for composting. The team hosted its first Pumpkin Smash in 2019. Since then, the organization has refined the process of planning, funding, and running Smashes. This playbook details how to organize a similar event in your community.

Smashes teach people about the importance of composting and help keep pumpkins out of landfills. But they also provide Extension organizations with an opportunity to increase Extension’s visibility and reach new communities, particularly in urban areas.

“Pumpkin Smash Playbook” was written by Kathryn M. Pereira, an Extension educator with the University of Illinois Extension. It’s the latest publication released by the Extension Foundation for the Cooperative Extension Service. It was made possible with funding from the New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) grant program.

The Extension Foundation has recently added new titles to its library, including the New Technologies for Ag Extension 2022-2023 Yearbook. The 83-page Yearbook – presented in a lively magazine format – documents dozens of projects funded through the New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) program, a cooperative agreement between USDA NIFA, Oklahoma State University, and the Extension Foundation. The goal of the New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) grant is to incubate, accelerate, and expand promising work that will increase the impact of the Cooperative Extension System (CES) in the communities it serves, and provide models that can be adopted or adapted by Extension teams across the nation.

You can find the entire library of publications here.

October 17, 2023/by Aaron Weibe