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More than 40 state education officials and agriculture teachers from 11 states attended the first National Agriscience Integration Institute (NAII) sponsored by DuPont.

Over 40 state education officials and agriculture teachers from 11 U.S. states were recently on the campus of DuPont business Pioneer Hi-Bred in Johnston, Iowa to attend the first National Agriscience Integration Institute (NAII).  This program is designed to promote and enhance opportunities for inquiry-based science in environmental and agricultural education system programs, student attainment of science content standards and national agriculture content standards. 

NAII is an extension of the National Agriscience Teacher Ambassador Academy (NATAA), held annually at the DuPont-owned Chesapeake Farms, Chestertown, Maryland (U.S.).  The academy is a professional development program where agriculture teachers learn new inquiry-based teaching techniques to improve science learning.  Both NAII and the academy are DuPont-sponsored programs.

“The exciting aspect of this training is that it has been designed as a state team agriculture education approach,” said Larry Gossen, NAII manager and senior team leader for state relations with the National FFA Organization .  “The goal is to make a positive impact on the integration of science and use of inquiry-based instruction in 10 – 12 states annually.”

Three or more persons make up a state team, including at least one experienced agriscience teacher- ambassador, a university teacher-educator, and a state education staff person. The overall expectation is that the state agriscience integration (SAI) team will develop a plan for integrating agriscience and inquiry-based instruction into their state agriculture education.  It is hoped that agriculture teachers and state education officials from all 50 states will be covered in the next four to five years.  Teams attending this year come from Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Washington and Wisconsin.