Hannah Scherer

Agricultural, Leadership, and Community Education

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ

I am an Associate Professor and Extension Specialist for STEM Education in Agriculture in the Department of Agricultural, Leadership, and Community Education at Virginia Tech. The primary purpose of my integrated program is to build educator capacity for developing and facilitating educational programs that engage learners in authentic, culturally relevant, and equitable STEM learning in Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources (AFNR) contexts. Through my scholarship, which is embedded in and supports my teaching and Extension program, I seek to understand: What are effective methods and models for promoting, supporting, and facilitating STEM teaching and learning in AFNR contexts? I approach this work from the position of a “boundary crosser;” someone who moves fluidly between the worlds of research and practice to affect change in both arenas through engaged scholarship. In my Extension role, I provide leadership for 4-H STEM programming in Virginia and support secondary agriculture teachers through professional development and grant-funded partnerships. I have co-authored agricultural sustainability curriculum materials, developed web resources on curriculum design to support systems thinking, and presented workshops and webinars with the InTeGrate project. I was the 2017 and 2018 co-chair of the Earth Educators’ Rendezvous, an interdisciplinary national conference focused on teaching about the Earth in a wide range of contexts. Please visit my departmental website for more information about my work.

Webinar Leader, Workshop Leader, Website Contributor

Website Content Contributions

Course Modules (7)

Unit 1: Impacts of Land Use part of A Growing Concern
In this introductory unit, students will learn about the fundamental role of observation by viewing photographs of both agricultural and non-agricultural (natural) landscapes and making independent observations. ...

InTeGrate Developed This material was developed and reviewed through the InTeGrate curricular materials development process.
Learn more about this review process.

Conference Presentations (13)

Supporting teaching and learning in the Food-Energy-Water (FEW)-Nexus through a National Collaborative part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2024:Program:Poster Sessions:Monday Poster Session
The Food-Energy-Water (FEW)-Nexus has emerged as a powerful framework for teaching and learning that supports systems thinking and decision making in coupled human-natural systems. The National Collaborative for ...

Other Contributions (11)

Improving Food-Energy-Water-Nexus-based Education: Defining new research directions from problems of practice part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2024:Program:Afternoon Mini-Workshops
The Food-Energy-Water (FEW)-Nexus framework helps describe and address natural resource challenges in complex coupled human-natural systems. As this framework gains traction in informal, non-formal, K-12, and ...

Communities

Workshop Leader (4 workshops)

Workshop Participant (39 workshops)

NC-FEW 2023 Invited Workshop
May 2023
EER 2020 Science Communication
July 2020
Advancing Transdisciplinary Dialogue in Geoscience Education Research
July 2018

Webinar Leader (5 webinars)

Webinar Participant (6 webinars)