A project aimed at helping prepare undergraduate students to serve as future agricultural educators has received $750,000 in renewed funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

The project — known as the Global Orientation to Agricultural Learning, or GOALs, program — is a collaboration among Penn State, the University of Idaho and 1890 land-grant institutions that gives undergraduate students a chance to have real life experiences in formal teaching settings.

GOALs is an initiative of the Global Teach Ag Network (GTAN), an organization cofounded by Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences professors Daniel Foster and Melanie Miller Foster to empower educators to connect students to global issues in food, fiber and natural resources.

“We founded the Global Teach Ag Network to address the growing challenges of food insecurity by connecting educators globally to do our part in building a stronger, more innovative agricultural education system,” said Miller Foster, associate teaching professor of international agriculture. “Pre-service agricultural educators need to experience diverse agricultural contexts to understand the complexities of global food security.”

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