University of Idaho Agricultural Education, Leadership, and Communications

CFFA Members stopped at the Columbus Zoo on their way to Indianapolis National FFA Convention week is here! Every year faculty from the department of Agricultural and Extension Education aid in the facilitation of three national Career Development Events, and this year eight members of Collegiate FFA are joining these professors in Indianapolis, helping to coordinate the Parliamentary Procedure, Prepared Public Speaking, and Agriscience Fair contests.  We also wish the best of luck to Gretchen Hansten who is serving as Idaho FFA’s National Officer Candidate and has worked hard to pursue her dream of serving as a National FFA Officer. Seventeen students from the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences will be receiving their American FFA degrees on Saturday. University of Idaho's Collegiate FFA is proud to serve at National Convention and help make learning opportunities available for FFA members all over the country!

By Ben Meyer, National FFA's Local Program Successs Team Specialist for the western region With the 90 th  National FFA Convention and Expo right around the corner, here are a few tips for a great week in the Circle City of Indianapolis!   Recommendations for ag educators: 1.       Be sure to complete the online registration process found at  www.ffa.org  before arriving in Indianapolis.  After receiving the registration confirmation email, then be sure to link student names to each registration purchased.  Doing this online before arriving in Indianapolis will save at least 45 minutes of waiting in registration lines. 2.       If a chapter is bringing a competitive team/individual for CDE/LDE participation, be sure to download and print the “2017 Event Information” letter found on the homepage of each CDE/LDE.  The most current information about each event i...

CALS student researches national FFA coaching styles Bret Kindall stepped away from seven generations of family beekeeping to discover his own path in life. At the University of Idaho, he found a passion for agricultural education through an undergraduate research project. Kindall, a sophomore in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) studying agricultural education and horticulture, wants to understand how FFA coaches can impact the success of students in competitions. His research over the past three months has included data from nearly 1,500 surveys of high school students and FFA coaches. He said his past experience winning a national FFA competition in floriculture provided valuable background for this research. Kindall says his project will influence his own coaching techniques when he becomes an FFA coach, but it also may impact how future agricultural education teachers are trained.  Agricultural and Extension Education assistant professor Jer...

Education specialist and vandal alumni Casey Zufelt describes the  career opportunities available through the National FFA "Everything speaks. Everything, always.”   I first heard this saying during my first National FFA leadership conference training. Our trainer was instilling in us that every word we speak, every action we took, every song we played set a learning environment that we could control for our students. Our job was it to make it matter. Always.   This idea has stuck with me, and is one I try to live myself – and pass on to those I train. My role at National FFA is to ensure that the over 8,500 members and 16 facilitators involved in 212°/360° conferences, 50 participants and 5 staff a part of New Century Farmer and over 12,000 attendees of student leadership workshops at the National FFA Convention & Expo get the best experience possible. It’s such an incredibly fulfilling feeling know that the w...

 By Maggie Elliot University of Idaho’s department of Agricultural and Extension Education led an important role at the National FFA Convention and Expo. Faculty assisted with the Agriscience Fair, Prepared Public Speaking, and Parliamentary Procedure CDE, of which nine Collegiate FFA members helped to facilitate. Very few universities offer Agricultural Education students the opportunity to facilitate CDE’s on a national level. Members ran scorecards, took notes, recorded time, and graded minutes, but perhaps the most valuable aspect of working at the convention was examining the interactions between advisors and students in the competitive environment. “Experiential Learning is a cornerstone of what we expect of our teachers and by using this experience to develop our teachers, they become witness to its effectiveness.” Said Assistant Professor Dr. Jeremy Falk. “Our students conduct daily reflections as a group and their insights are above par, including: int...

by Maggie Elliot  Maggie Elliot, Logan Zepp, and Morgan Howard at the 2016 New Century Farmers Conference The challenges surrounding modern agriculture are daunting. Producers must be mindful of the sustainability of their practices, taking into account soil, water, and air quality. They must produce in an era with shifting precipitation patterns and climate changes. They must keep an eye on emerging technologies to maximize the efficiency of their production, and market their commodity to a global economy of consumers, with many who have been removed from the food and fiber system for generations. The New Century Farmers program, administered by the National FFA Organization seeks to expose young adults engaged in production agriculture to the wealth of resources available to producers and provide insight into the tumultuous profession. Myself and two other vandals, Logan Zepp and fellow ASCL major Morgan Howard joined 30 other students in Iowa in July for th...