[MUSIC]
The Purdue University College of
Agriculture has a long history of
impacting research, education and
cooperative extension to improve
agriculture and
the role of agriculture in our society.
One of the ways that we
continue to do that is in this
realm of digital agriculture.
It's the fusing of our physical and
social worlds to make improved
data-driven decisions and actions.
So you'll see a website
up there in the corner,
we encourage you to visit
that purdue.ag/digag.
I'm Dennis Buckmaster, a professor of
Agricultural and Biological Engineering.
I also serve our dean and
our associate deans as a Dean's Fellow for
Digital Agriculture to coordinate
activities in the college,
at the university and through to external
stakeholders regarding data-driven,
technology intensive agriculture.
One of the projects that we have is
the Wabash Heartland Innovation Network.
The WHIN project is not
exclusively a Purdue project.
It is a partnership with
WHIN the organization,
the community foundations in a 10
county region of West Central Indiana.
Of course, Purdue as well as
Ivy Tech Community College and
many partner organizations,
farms, manufacturing firms, etc.
The focus of the WHIN project
is to increase the role of
advanced technology in agriculture and
manufacturing.
In this series of brief presentations,
you're going to learn
how the WHIN funds are being used to
advance the technology in agriculture.
So whether this particular video
covers the capturing, the clustering,
the collecting or the computing,
you'll have to wait to see.
But in each of these cases,
we are improving forward the technology
in agriculture through digital means.
>> Greeting everyone.
I'm Hui-Hui Wang, the project
director of WHIN with LOCAL STEM.
Data-driven problem solving using
agriculture food natural
resources challenge.
As you can see in this project,
we have many experts involved.
That is Neil Knobloch,
Roger Tormoehlen, Petrus Langenhoven,
Betty Feng, undergraduate students,
Bryanna Nelson.
So what is LOCAL STEM?
LOCAL STEM means Land-grant Outreach for
Community-based Agricultural Learning for
Science, Technology, Engineering and
Mathematics Education.
We hope this project can change
the traditional way how STEM and
agriculture teachers teach
the subject area by bringing
more real-word authentic,
agricultural food,
natural resources, engineering
design challenge to their students.
And we hope those students can
learn more through those STEM
experiential learning experience.
This is the model that we use to
structure WHIN LOCAL STEM projects.
The model is developed by myself and
my colleague, Dr. Neil Knobloch.
As you can see the bottom layer represent
the traditional way how STEM started and
agriculture being taught
in high school setting.
The second layer represent potential
opportunity by STEM teachers and
agricultural teachers can
collaborate co developed their
integrated STEM through agriculture for
natural resources, curriculum instruction.
The third layer represent
agro-ecosystem thinking.
When you think about WHIN solving
a real-world agriculture for
natural resources problem,
those four components
naturally plays a very important
role in the problem solving process,
which they are social responsibility,
economic viability, production efficiency,
environmental sustainability.
But what holds the foundation or
the key to solving the problem,
which scientists of course, that's data.
So the thing that decision making
is on the top of this model.
Whenever you're trying
to decide a solutions or
make decisions on how to solve this
problem, data plays a very important role
in the problem solving
process also in this model.
By participating in this project,
we hope we can create a small learning
community for STEM and agriculture
teacher they can collaborate with
the Purdue scientists to core develops and
designed their integrated STEM for
agriculture for
natural resources curriculum instruction.
And we hope teachers will use in the
real-world research data and results that
provide by Purdue scientists to facilitate
a learning experience for their students.
And of course, by doing so, we hope
students can practice problem-solving
skills that is very important for
the 21st century workforce skills.
The project has this three stage.
In the summer, we will provide
professional development program for
teachers.
And after that, during the fall semester,
teachers start working
together as an interdisciplinary
team to developed their lesson.
Then they will implement their
lesson in spring semester.
So the project's Summer Professional
Development that we have done in 2019,
there are three topic areas involved,
which are hydroponics,
agricultural robotics, and
food safety and technology.
Three high school
participate in this project.
They are Benton Central, Tri-County,
and Frontier High School.
Total we have 8 teachers, 4 agriculture
teachers, 3 science teachers and
1 technology teachers
participated in the project.
The bottom are some of the photos
that we took in a professional
development program.
So after teacher have
found their professional
development program in summer,
here is the project update.
One being Benton Central teacher.
So what she did is she chose
the hydroponics is a topic, and
she implement utilize integrated
STEM curriculum just for
herself because one of
the teacher actually dropped.
Then she actually really liked
the project and she receiving
the funding from the school that
helped her install a hydroponic system
in agriculture classroom, so
she can utilize that as a laboratory and
helping her students to
learnt hydroponics and
spent content knowledge that
imbedded in the hydroponics.
Tri-County teachers are three teachers
that they focus on the food science and
safety.
So in biology class, the biology
teacher tell how germs growth and
in agriculture teachers, the two of them,
teaches how food safety and
the safety procedures
when you prepare for.
And frontiers that I choose
Ag robotics project.
So those three teachers actually rotate
teach one class which is via two class.
And the topic focus on how
agriculture robotics can
potentially be used to survey
endangered species in Indiana.
So here is one pictures that
Benton Central teachers send to us.
This is the new hydroponic system that
she got a funding from a school and
then installed and then using as
education tool to teach her students.
So what's the next step for this project?
We have already received
USDA/NIFA PADL Grant to
continue this project from 2020 to 2023.
We hope we can finalize the material
that Benton Central, Tri -County,
Frontier teachers develops and to share
with other teachers who are interested
in using integrated STEM through FNR,
this' type of teaching strategy.
We hope we can train and help those
teachers become peer teachers or
educators that teach other teacher
to use this type of material.
Also, we like'd to collect more data, and
then to think about what's the next step
of the research that we'd like to come
back to help us to improve
the model of LOCAL STEM?
Thank you very much.
>> Hui-Hui, thank you very much for that
quick update with regard to your project.
Have just a couple questions.
And the first one would be,
as you look at your project,
do you see that it's primarily about
motivating these students to work with
data and problem solving in agriculture or
is it also very much about building their
skills to be able to do these things?
>> I think it's more about building
their skills to prepare them to
become more problem solver by using
data strategy, motivating students.
Yes, I think that incorporates in
the project because when you try to do
integrated STEM to agriculture for
natural resources,
this type of real-world talent
solving the real-world challenge,
that just motivates students
because you using the project and
the problem that relevant
to their everyday life.
By doing that the project particularly
helping student process and
using their previous knowledge
to try to solving the problem.
So I will say it will be more like
building the scale to help the students
prepare them,
equip them with the problem solving skill.
>> Okay, good.
And realizing that there were
sort of three dimensions,
the food safety, the hydroponics, and
then the agricultural robotics,
you can pick any one of those three.
What is the data aspect of these projects?
What elements of data will
the students be measuring,
analyzing and using to improve the system?
>> Thank you for the question.
I think I'm gonna using
hydroponics systems as an example.
>> Mm-hm.
>> So the teacher we collaborate with,
she definitely,
when she started the hydroponics systems,
she ask student majors and
then design those hydroponic systems.
So, those are the data that they can use.
Plus that when they study
germinate the seed and
to really start from the pre
harvest to the post harvest,
all the stuff, they're involved in data.
Student need to measure the temperature,
need to calculate the nutrients when
they're putting into the water,
that they use to grow their lattice,
the pH and
even the energy conservation
that they needed to think about,
because during the winter
time they need it.
It's in the greenhouse
type of a situation, but
they also needed to control
the temperature during the winter time.
So I think those are the data helping
them to increase the production of
the vegetables, and student need to
using those data to make the decisions.
So, every step that they did,
they needed to really think about
what kind of data they collected and
how can those data help them improve
their design of the hydroponics and
then probably get more yield
after vegetable that they grow.
>> Good, very good.
Well, I don't want to be too
much of a Danny downer here, but
I also teach college level courses and
I find that sometimes the students just
lack the math skills that I wish they had.
And so
as these students do these projects,
do you have any evidence that
the math co requisite is satisfied?
Are the teachers able to move
forward like they would like?
Or are the students lacking
math skills in order to truly
be the problem solvers that
we would like them to be?
Yes, so that this is a very
interesting question because I think
up to this point,
the project they're in the early stage.
We hoping to getting more students data
to kind of helping us understand how
students learn by using integrated STEM
for FNR this type of teaching strategy.
Hearing from the teachers,
they did talk about students really.
One of the effect of doing this
is trying to help students using
more mathematics as well and
then in a real-world setting.
So it's not just using
the mathematics in the textbook, but
they can really apply their skills and
in solving a problem where NFR students
are more interesting and then to see how
the math can be used to solving a problem.
So I think we're moving to that direction
and trying to get more data, and
then choose the core there.
But so far I [INAUDIBLE] deployed, sorry,
I don't have more information for you.
>> That's very good.
I am hoping that our students get
involved in projects like this,
that they find out that,
that math is very practical.
And it does help me do the things
that I really want to do.
So therefore, they will maybe be
more motivated in the math realm.
I think it's a wonderful thing.
>> Thank you.
>> Well, again, thanks for
all of this and we look forward
to more updates in the future.
>> Okay, thank you.
