Reaching Out: Joining the Professional World of Agriculture Education

This week was the launch of the 2022 Global Learning in Agriculture Conference (GLAG) hosted by the Global Teach Ag Network! Founded by Dr. Daniel Foster and Dr. Melanie Miller-Foster, the Global Teach Ag Network seeks to empower educators through high-quality professional development in global agriculture. One of the ways that the Global Teach Ag Network achieves this vision is through the Global Learning in Agriculture Conference each year! This year, the theme of the Global Learning in Agriculture Conference is Reaching Out, and as launch week comes to an end and I enter a year-long journey as a member of the GLAG 2022 community, I reflect on some ways I have been Reaching Out! 

 

The 2022 GLAG Conference-In-A-Box

 

One of the benefits of being a member of the GLAG community is receiving a Conference-In-A-Box. This year, the box was filled with snacks from countries all over the world, including Germany, Pakistan, and Poland. The box also included the featured book for GLAGReads, titled Our Changing Menu. GLAGReads is a side event held by members of the GLAG community. In addition to these fantastic items, there was a RocketBook in the box (the latest notebook technology) and other resources and items provided by GLAG’s many generous sponsors. My favorite thing out of the Conference-In-A-Box was a book titled World Without Fish. Inspired by the 2021 World Food Prize Laureate, Shakuntala Haraksingh Thilsted, and as a nod to 2022 being United Nations International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture, the book was included in the box as a part of GLAGJr, another side event held by GLAG. 

 

The GLAG 2022: Reaching Out Conference-In-A-Box!

Reaching Out to a Community of Professionals 

The week was off to a great start as I watched my first video of GLAG, a video tour of the Borlaug Institute’s IAEFP program’s schools, operating out of Ghana. In the video, Jessica Spence, a fellow in the program, explains the typical look and feel of a Ghanan classroom. I thought this video was interesting because I have never seen classrooms like theirs before and GLAG also has participants from Ghana, so it was a nice way to get a global experience through the video. 

The thing I am most excited about as a GLAG participant is the global knowledge I will gain as a GOALs participant. The Global Orientation to Agricultural Learning is a program for pre-service Agricultural and Extension Education majors at Penn State in partnership with the World Food Prize Foundation. As part of the GOALs program, my cohort and I get to travel to different schools across the United States and teach students about global citizenship and the role global agriculture plays in our lives! I am so excited to see what experiences I have in GLAG that will grow my global competency and contribute to my teaching immersion experience in Maryville, Tennessee in a few short weeks! 

As a GOALS participant, I got to travel to Des Monies, IA to see 

2021 Laureate Shakuntala Haraksingh Thilsted receive the World Food Prize.

Another part of launch week I really enjoyed was reading all of the attendees’ introduction posts. As I went through and read everyone’s introduction, I met members of the GLAG community from Uganda, Australia, and the Netherlands, just to name a few. There were industry leaders, CEOs, professors, and high school agriculture teachers, and I found myself asking the question, “How do I fit into this conference?” and “What do I as a pre-service teacher have to offer?’ But the answer was simple. At GLAG, everyone has something to offer, whether it be an experience shared, a thought on a topic, or just a picture of the food they have grown. GLAG has given me the opportunity to see into the lives of so many people from around the world, and I am so excited to see where the rest of my year in GLAG 22 takes me! 

 

Interested In Joining the GLAG Community?

 

If you are interested in all the GLAG Community has to offer, you can find more information here, and be sure to follow the Global Teach Ag Network (@GlobalTeachAg) on Twitter!