Consumer confidence and trust, as it relates to the food system, is one of the most sensitive areas within consumers' understanding of food. Surveys have shown that a large majority of people would like to learn more about agriculture and food manufacturing, with young people being among those most eager for more information about where their food comes from.Food-focused educational resources often go unused due to teachers' lack of familiarity with the subject area, the pressures of standardized testing, and lack of alignment to state content standards. Building on the success of the Hands On Classrooms platform that developed and validated curricula with high adoption rates by teachers and a demonstrated impact on student knowledge and self-efficacy, a new curriculum on food system and food processing was developed and pilot tested. Two teachers from rural Virginia and Tennessee participated in the study. Both teachers received online professional development prior to implementation. Students were given pretests and posttests to measure (a) what impact does the curriculum have on students' knowledge of food systems and processing and (b) to what extent does the curriculum have an impact on student's self-reported skills related to these topics? A total of 87 students completed the assessments and showed significant improvements from pretest to posttest on both knowledge (p < .001) and skills (p < .001) related specifically to where food comes from and how it is processed, content that is typically not covered in middle school curriculum. Further research can be undertaken to measure the impact on others in different geographic and socioeconomic areas to provide additional data to validate the program.

As the prevalence of integrated STEM education increases worldwide, some elementary schools in the United States have converted their programs to be more STEM-focused. This study examines the practices of two highly regarded STEM-focused elementary schools that focus on engineering education. The resulting case studies of the school explain their engineering programming, teacher professional development, and the way they situate growth mindset to integrate an engineering design process across content areas. These schools have successfully sustained the integration of engineering education by partnering with engineers and engineering educators outside of the school, providing a conducive environment for teacher collaboration, and enhance growth mindset for the school community by using the lens of engineering design. Administrators, teachers, and students all used an engineering design cycle to learn and solve problems. The systems found at these schools have the potential be transferred into other school settings wanting to amplify their STEM offerings.

Extension workplace mentoring programs may produce increased Extension programming competence, organizational commitment, job satisfaction (Denny, 2016), and leadership effectiveness (Kutilek & Earnest, 2001).  The study described in this article aimed to gather information for a proposed mentoring program for Extension administrative assistants.  A total of 12 focus groups were conducted with 78 participants representing five employee groups: administrative assistants, Extension agents, county directors, state specialists, and department heads.  Employee groups were separately interviewed.  Findings indicated that respondents perceive the role of an administrative assistant as critically important, and major competencies required by the administrative assistant role are people skills/customer service, bookkeeping, technology, and a willingness to learn/adaptability to change.  Respondents perceived that workplace mentoring is important, and it should be required of all newly-hired administrative assistants.  Regarding incentives, administrative assistants felt that counting mentoring time as part of their University’s annual professional learning requirement of 32 hours would encourage participation.  Major recommendations include the establishment of an e-mentoring program that incorporates the administrative assistants’ academic, career, and personal goals in addition to organizational policies and procedures.