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| navigate: home: magazine: fall 2000: article | |
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Cooperative Extension links with University colleges to benefit Pennsylvanians By Deborah A. Benedetti | |||||||||||||||||||
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As Penn State continues expanding its engagement with individuals, communities and organizations in Pennsylvania and worldwide, one University unit with a historic tradition of outreach — Penn State Cooperative Extension — is embarking on a program to create linkages with other University colleges to further its mission of making life better for its clients. As Dr. Theodore R. Alter explains, “We want to link Penn State Cooperative Extension with other parts of the University to enhance our ability to carry out Penn State’s land-grant mission. The core principle of this mission is taking the research and education expertise from across the entire University and applying it in a very practical way to benefit our clients — the citizens of Pennsylvania.” Alter, who serves as associate vice president for outreach, director of Penn State Cooperative Extension and associate dean in the College of Agricultural Sciences, added, “Cooperative Extension, with offices in each of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties and faculty in the College of Agricultural Sciences, is ideally organized to transfer Penn State’s expertise to the public. By combining our expertise and resources with that of all Penn State colleges, we can greatly expand the University’s engagement with the citizens of Pennsylvania through meaningful, research-based, nonformal educational programs.” These partnerships are leading to new educational curricula and inservice training programs for Penn State Cooperative Extension agents who, in turn, are sharing this knowledge with the people in their counties and regions. The partners also are collaborating on grant proposals to support these new initiatives. “The intersection and crossover between Penn State Cooperative Extension and the colleges is leading to a seamless support system for developing education programs and taking the programs to the people,” Alter said. “Our clients don’t care which college houses the knowledge they need. They care only about accessing that knowledge.” Following are some of the collaborations now under way: College of Health and Human Development and College of Medicine
Penn State Cooperative Extension, the College of Health and Human Development and the College of Medicine are working together on the Rural Women’s Health Initiative.
This initiative is sponsoring a series of continuing professional education programs that address the health issues of women living in rural Pennsylvania. Program topics have focused on cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis. The project is committed to improving the quality of health for women of all ages living in rural communities by enhancing the knowledge and skills of the professionals who care for them.
Dr. Luanne Thorndyke, assistant dean for continuing medical education and associate professor of clinical medicine in the College of Medicine, and Dr. Sara Parks, director of the School of Hotel, Restaurant and Recreation Management in the College of Health and Human Development, took the lead in establishing the Rural Women’s Health Initiative. Parks previously was associate dean for outreach, Cooperative Extension and international programs in the college.
As a result of the Osteoporosis Across the Life Span conference, an Osteoporosis Working Group has been established, according to Dr. Marilyn Corbin, state program leader for children, youth and families with Penn State Outreach and Cooperative Extension. The Osteoporosis Working Group is comprised primarily of representatives from Penn State Cooperative Extension, the College of Health and Human Development and the School of Nursing. In cooperation with the Pennsylvania Departments of Health and Public Welfare, the working group is developing a state strategic plan that addresses issues related to osteoporosis.
In August 2000, Penn State Cooperative Extension, the College of Agricultural Sciences, the College of Health and Human Development and the College of Medicine sponsored the “Bridging Rural Women’s Health into the New Millennium” leadership conference in Washington, D.C. President Graham Spanier was the opening keynote speaker for the conference, which brought together national and state organizations dealing with the health issues of women in rural areas. Corbin said the goal was to focus national attention on program needs and public policy issues so future projects could be developed to promote the health of rural women.
For more information about Penn State’s involvement in rural health initiatives, see story. College of Health and Human Development
In April, Penn State Cooperative Extension and the College of Health and Human Development co-sponsored a satellite teleconference on Childhood Obesity: The New Epidemic. The American Dietetic Association promoted the program nationally.
Another Cooperative Extension and College of Health and Human Development project is in the early stages of development. Corbin said Cooperative Extension will partner with faculty members in the Department of Nutrition to develop education curricula and nutrition consumer information. The Web will be used as the delivery mechanism for sharing these materials. A project manager will provide support and facilitation to major projects by linking specific faculty members to Cooperative Extension program priorities.
College of Agricultural Sciences faculty and Penn State Cooperative Extension educators also are collaborating with the Children, Youth and Families Consortium and the Prevention Research Center for the Promotion of Human Development in the College of Health and Human Development. Publications and research findings will help Cooperative Extension agents apply the Prevention Center’s research to real-world situations. A project of the Prevention Center is the Harrisburg Center of Healthy Child Development, which provides leadership to the Early Childhood Training Institute. The Early Childhood Training Institute is a community-based initiative to provide training and information to the parents and care providers of children from birth through 3 years of age. Through this program, Dauphin, Cumberland and Perry County Cooperative Extension agents are distributing the Capital Area Early Childhood Training Directory.
“More partnerships and collaborations are unfolding naturally now as people get to know of each other’s expertise,” Corbin said. College of Engineering
“We have created a partnership with the College of Engineering that will greatly enhance Penn State Cooperative Extension programming focused on water quality issues in both small community water systems and decentralized, on-lot septic systems,” Alter said. “This is a wonderful partnership to help local citizens and government officials address critical water quality issues. We are drawing upon College of Engineering expertise and experience in the design, maintenance and construction of systems. This is an extraordinary opportunity.”
This new partnership is primarily focused on water quality issues and on-lot septic systems. Dr. Raymond W. Regan is preparing educational materials for Penn State Cooperative Extension agents to help them respond to residents’ concerns about septic systems. Regan is professor of environmental engineering in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, with a joint appointment with the Environmental Resources Research Institute. In the spring, he met with about 30 Penn State faculty members and Cooperative Extension agents. Regan is planning a training program for the agents in October, according to Dr. Jack Watson, state program leader for agricultural and natural resources with Outreach and Cooperative Extension.
“Ray Regan is working closely with the Penn State Cooperative Extension agents responsible for water quality so that the materials he produces meet the needs identified by Pennsylvania residents,” Watson said. “Ray is also talking with sewage enforcement officers to learn about the issues that are important to people with septic systems. He is serving as a liaison with the sewage enforcement officers at the state level.”
“In cities, there are sewer pipes, waterlines and wastewater treatment plants,” Regan explained. “In rural areas, there is no economic option for these systems. Rural residents must set up a decentralized system for treating effluent, so that it can be released safely back into the environment. Twenty five percent of the U.S. population and 25 percent of Pennsylvania’s population are served by decentralized, or on-lot, septic systems.”
The major thrust of Regan’s collaboration with Penn State Cooperative Extension involves training county agents involved with water quality issues. He is conducting a Web search of existing Cooperative Extension materials on the topics of on-lot wastewater treatment systems and drinking water supply systems for rural areas. So far, he has found many educational materials on these topics in all 50 states. He is developing a Web site with links to these materials, so that Pennsylvania Cooperative Extension agents can access what they need to help the residents in their areas.
The next step, Regan said, is to ask Penn State Cooperative Extension agents about emerging issues, so that he can help them address these issues.
“These water quality issues are extremely important, because we are talking about a need in society,” Regan said.
Watson added, “Our Penn State Cooperative Extension agents are being called on to provide information to homeowners to help them operate their septic systems properly. The process of developing educational materials, conducting the training and getting feedback is an important ongoing process.”
Another Penn State Cooperative Extension–College of Engineering project will benefit the thousands of young people who participate in Cooperative Extension 4-H programs throughout Pennsylvania. Penn State Cooperative Extension uses some educational materials developed by the national 4-H Cooperative Curriculum System for its 4-H activities.
Now Dr. Jeffrey L. Schiano, associate professor of electrical engineering, is contributing his expertise to 4-H electricity projects. Schiano will supplement the materials Penn State Cooperative Extension acquires nationally.
“My goal is to get children interested in electrical science and technology at a very young age, so that they are more inclined to take courses in science and math in high school,” Schiano said. “Today, most of the students entering my classroom have little practical background in electrical engineering — unlike 15 to 20 years ago, when kids grew up making their own radios.”
One of the first programs he developed for children was “Shorts, Shocks and Shenanigans,” which he conducted in cooperation with the Children’s Museum of Centre County. Schiano recruited undergraduate students in Eta Kappa Nu, the electrical engineering honor society, to instruct 12 elementary school children in an undergraduate lab one day a week after school for six weeks.
“Working with 4-H will amplify this effort by reaching many more children across the state and even nationally,” he said. “The program can impact hundreds and thousands of kids, and that’s useful for enticing students into science and technology careers.”
Schiano is developing a Web site that will have links to electrical engineering resources and science and technology information appropriate for children. He also is reviewing children’s science books and will feature the best ones on his Web site, so that children can borrow the books from their local libraries or buy them. In addition, he is designing electrical science and technology projects for children.
“I want a child to make something, then alter some aspect of the project and be able to appreciate how it changes,” Schiano explained. “In these project kits, I will leave room for improvement and see if a child can make the jump to understand cause-and-effect relationships. This is a good way to learn engineering, and it will also introduce children to design at a very young age.”
Schiano plans to train the Penn State Cooperative Extension agents who work with 4-H volunteers. He knows 4-H volunteers are not typically engineers, so he is designing his projects so that 4-Hers and volunteers can learn about electrical engineering together.
“We are really excited about Jeff Schiano’s working with us, as he is bringing to life the 4-H electrical engineering curriculum with his energy, innovative ideas and hands-on programming models,” Corbin said.
Through partnerships with the College of Engineering and other colleges, Corbin believes 4-H youth development programming can be expanded and strengthened. College of Earth and Mineral Sciences
Dr. Marvin H. Hall, professor of forage management in the College of Agricultural Sciences, and Dr. Douglas A. Miller, director for outreach with the Earth and Mineral Sciences Environmental Institute, are developing a Web-based forage species selector. Each partner is bringing his special expertise to the project. The result will be a Web-based, geographic information systems (GIS) map program that farmers can use to find out what kind of forage will grow well in their area.
Hall and Miller have expanded on a Cornell University Web-based interface that allows users to provide a soil type or zip code and their own management factors to find the right forage to grow in their area. In collaboration with Dr. Jerry Cherney of Cornell, Hall and Miller have developed a prototype Web-based forage species selection tool that enables agronomic professionals, including Penn State Cooperative Extension agents, farmers and consultants, to select the optimal forage species for a specific land area.
The Penn State forage selector provides a map location linked to underlying soil series information (i.e., series identification, drainage and slope classes). The program then poses a series of management questions to the user. Then the decision-support component of the computer program offers recommendations to the user in the form of tabular and narrative summaries.
“Planting a forage crop that is not adapted to the soil type in a field can cause reduced yields or stand failure,” Hall said. “This program will assist farmers, via the World Wide Web, in selecting the most suitable forage crop for a particular field on their farm. Ultimately, this should improve forage yield, which can improve farm profit.”
Miller added, “I think this project demonstrates the combination of unique expertise from two Penn State colleges — College of Agricultural Sciences and College of Earth and Mineral Sciences — to provide a product that will help Pennsylvania agriculture professionals optimize production and make informed decisions about land resources. The College of Agricultural Sciences provides the expertise in forages, while we provide expertise in Web mapping and spatial information resources.”
He explained that Web mapping is “an emerging paradigm that combines the power of geographic information systems (GIS) with information architecture to produce easily usable map interfaces that are designed to answer specific questions related to the spatial nature of the land surface. These map interfaces assume minimal technical knowledge of GIS on the part of the user.
“In the future, we envision augmenting the forage species selector (and potentially other Agricultural Sciences projects) with Earth and Mineral Sciences expertise in meteorology and climatology,” Miller added. “We envision being able to provide near real-time information on weather and climate for topic areas such as drought planning, integrated pest management and crop production — basically any type of agriculturally related problem where we can combine Web mapping and weather/climate information to provide up-to-the-minute information for Pennsylvania’s agriculture industry.”
This project has applications for farmers raising beef and dairy cattle, horses and other animals, Watson said. This issue also is related to water quality, because grass filter strips are being planted along the banks of waterways to prevent erosion.
“The water quality and forage selector projects are just two examples of our new partnerships with other colleges,” Watson said. “Doug Miller has studied agricultural sciences, and Ray Regan has worked on Cooperative Extension projects before, so they both brought a sense of engagement with clients to their new projects with Cooperative Extension. Both know what it’s like to apply research to real-world problems.”
This process of taking science and technology information and putting it into practice in a useful way is challenging,” Watson said. “You have to look for what’s really appropriate and what works and recognize the value of the product and how people will work with the applications.”
Another collaboration is taking place between Dr. Rick L. Day, assistant professor of soil science and environmental information systems and director of the Land Analysis Laboratory, and Pennsylvania Spatial Data Access (PASDA). Day directs the Penn State Cooperative Extension GIS Program. PASDA has created a Web-based interface that provides access to geospatial data about the state of Pennsylvania.
“We are working cooperatively with the PASDA project,” Day said. “Along with PASDA, the Penn State Cooperative Extension program is providing digital GIS data and education to users throughout the Commonwealth for a variety of applications at no direct cost. Future enhancements to the PASDA program will use interactive Internet mapping technologies that will further extend the information to citizens throughout Pennsylvania.”
The partnership between Penn State Cooperative Extension and PASDA is designed to make spatial data describing environmental, demographic, cultural, socioeconomic and other conditions available to users, who will be able to interactively map this data without having special software installed on their computers. All they will need is a Web browser, Day explained.
“This technology empowers decision-makers and citizens by providing information in a readily accessible format with analytical capabilities that are otherwise unavailable to computer users. This will extend the power of GIS (geographic information systems) to everyone. The result will be better decisions in areas such as farmland preservation, land use planning and development, watershed management and economic development. The PASDA project represents a significant outreach effort for the state and is a model of success throughout the country,” Day said.
“There are endless opportunities for Penn State Cooperative Extension to link the expertise and resources of Penn State to serve the businesses, communities and citizens of Pennsylvania,” Alter noted. “The College of Earth and Mineral Sciences has been wonderful to work with, and Dean John Dutton has provided extraordinary leadership in helping to create our partnership to achieve this vision.
“This partnership will enable us to bring land surface, climate and hydrological data and information to bear to help identify and resolve a whole range of environmental quality issues that are pertinent to managing production agriculture enterprises. Farmers need climatological data to understand and manage spraying and integrated pest management programs for pest control. For effective crop management, farmers need a good database on a real-time basis that will give them information about soil hydrology and soil moisture,” Alter said.
“The College of Earth and Mineral Sciences has the information systems relating to climate and hydrological variables that we need to help improve the management information available to the agricultural production sector. This will greatly enhance the management and profitability of that sector,” he said.
“With the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences and in collaboration with the Land Analysis Laboratory, we will strengthen our capabilities to deliver geographic information systems data to local officials, farmers and our community partners for policy and management decision making,” Alter said. “Web delivery of data — soil, hydrological and other kinds of maps, for example — will be possible. This will have incredible positive payoff for the management and economic viability of our farms, businesses and communities.” | ||||||||||||||||||
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© 2002 Outreach Communications, Outreach & Cooperative Extension, The Pennsylvania State University phone: (814) 865-8108, fax: (814) 863-2765, e-mail: outreachnews@outreach.psu.edu |
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