Teach Grand Challenges: Sustaining Agriculture for Today and Tomorrow

Grand challenge in this episode: Investigating Sustainable Practices in Agriculture, Food and the Environment

About the Challenge

The purpose of this project is to leverage a preexisting online professional development resource and its large following of SBA educators to create a more effective model of professional development where teachers engage in immersive experiences in agriculture, capture those experiences via the formats already used by Owl Pellets, and share them with their peers to develop an ever-growing community of practice around grand agricultural challenges founds within teachers’ local communities and FANH careers. One of the primary goals of this project is to re-engage SBA educators in the challenges, technology, and work of their local agricultural community – making grand challenges local.

Visit the Teach Grand Challenges website.

About the Guest

Joe Ramstad grew up in Forest Lake, Minnesota just north of the Twin Cities metro without any farm or direct agricultural experiences but took his first agricultural education course as a freshman and was instantly hooked! His experiences in high school inspired him to become an agricultural education teacher. He earned his undergraduate degrees in Agricultural Education and Agricultural Communication & Marketing from the University of Minnesota—Twin Cities and graduated in 2019. Since then, he has been teaching agricultural education to students in grades 5 through 12, engaging them in a variety of courses ranging from advanced welding to veterinary science. He is also currently working on his Masters of Science in Agricultural Education and Communication from the University of Florida. Sustainability is a cornerstone discussion topic that finds its way into nearly every class Joe teaches. Outside of teaching, Joe enjoys being outdoors, grilling foods and traveling!