Aquaculture is the fastest growing sectors of food production worldwide and is vitally important to obtaining sustainable food security in the future. However, in the United States aquaculture continues to grow at a sluggish pace and is often misunderstood or completely unknown to many U.S. consumers.
To increase awareness for the next generation of seafood consumers and create defined pathways into the aquaculture workforce many extension educators and academics are creating K-12 aquaculture programs and working closely with K-12 schools to help integrate aquaculture curriculums into classrooms. A model initiated in Michigan has employed K-12 Teacher training to increase aquaculture literacy for the next generation of seafood consumers, as well as inspire an increase into the aquaculture career workforce. This teacher training program has included two-day teacher workshops as a cornerstone of assisting teachers in using aquaponics as a STEM tool in the classroom. MI Sea Grant, along with several partners, has delivered this training over 10 times, and in each case has sought to gather info on the impact on the teacher’s curriculum, and students.
This talk will summarize the model teacher training curriculum, discuss the benefits and drawbacks to a simple two-day training, and discuss the outcomes from follow-up surveys. Surveys both immediately before and after the training, as well as multi-month follow-up surveys, have been analyzed to assess where these training may equip teachers to promote aquaculture literacy and workforce development, and where they can still be improved.