The veterinary and animal science training for teachers (vastt) project is designed to address the animal health and production and animal products priority area of the afri farm bill

The Veterinary and Animal Science Training for Teachers (VASTT) Project, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture through the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program (CFDA 10.310), addresses the Animal Health and Production priority area with a total obligation of $494,000. Awarded to Murray State University on September 1, 2025, the project runs through August 31, 2029, and delivers professional development and instructional resources to 120 agriculture teachers through annual summer training sessions beginning in summer 2026. Teachers receive commercially-developed textbooks, digital content presentations, laboratory instruction workbooks, laboratory teaching supply kits, and project-developed materials shared via digital platforms, which they utilize to facilitate classroom instruction for an anticipated 6,000 students.

The secondary objective supports faculty-led, credit-bearing mentorship opportunities with stipends for 16 undergraduate agricultural education students. The project incorporates experiential training including tours of local veterinary facilities and employs comprehensive evaluation methodologies to assess outcomes. Additionally, the project team will develop and maintain a Murray State University-hosted project information website and generate scholarly presentations and publications disseminating project findings and resources to the agricultural education community.

The primary objective of this project is to provide professional development in animal science and veterinary science and aligned resources to 120 agriculture teachers. This will be accomplished through providing experiential, innovative training (including tours of local veterinary facilities) toagriculture teachers. Teachers will in turn use the resources given to them at their training sessions (i.e., commercially-developed textbooks, digital content presentations, and laboratory instruction workbooks, laboratory teaching supply kits, and digital copies of project team-developed materials shared via a google drive folder) to facilitate instruction for their students. Training sessions (one annually) will begin in the summer 2026 semester and conclude in the summer 2029 semester. Every participating agriculture teacher will be provided with resources to take back to theirschool. IT is anticipated that 6,000 students will be indirectly impacted by this project. The secondary objective of this project is to support faculty-led, course credit-bearing, stipend-funded mentorship opportunities for 16 undergraduate agricultural education students. Exhaustive, multi-faceted project evaluation methods will be employed by selected project team members and the external evaluator. Several scholarly presentations and publications will be generated by this project. Amurray state university-hosted project information website will be developed and regularly maintained by the project team.