UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The entire Penn State Extension Master Gardener leadership team was selected to present at the 2024 National Extension Master Gardener Coordinators’ Conference, held Aug. 26-29 in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
The conference offers an opportunity for Extension Master Gardener coordinators to network and share ideas, projects and methods for programming.
“The conference is for Master Gardener coordinators across the country, people who are experts on taking volunteer enthusiasm and university research and turning it into real-world impact,” said Erin Kinley, state Master Gardener coordinator with Penn State Extension.
The call for proposals requested topics related to Master Gardener programming efforts, such as effective and engaging online training, adapting to changing demographics, and planning for evaluation.
Valerie Sesler, Master Gardener area coordinator for 12 counties in southwestern Pennsylvania, led a presentation titled “Power to the Bee-ple: Creating a Nationally Recognized Research Partnership Between Penn State Researchers and EMGs.”
“While Master Gardener volunteers have become a staple of land-grant university outreach, extension faculty often are still hesitant to tap into our volunteer pool for high-impact research projects,” Sesler said. “However, Penn State Extension’s award-winning, nationally recognized bee monitoring project demonstrates a model that can be replicable at any institution with the right planning and resources.”
For the bee monitoring project, 20 Penn State Master Gardener volunteers — nicknamed the Bee People or “Bee-ple” — are working with the lab of Margarita López-Uribe, associate professor of entomology in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, in a multiyear effort to increase understanding of Pennsylvania’s native bee population.
Since the project’s inception in 2021, Master Gardeners have been directly responsible for documenting populations of multiple new native and nonnative bee species in the state. Findings from the project also recently were accepted for publication in the Annals of the Entomological Society of America.
At the conference, Sesler presented a detailed road map for how the project was initiated and developed and now is maintained as it enters its fourth season. She covered topics such as funding sources, specialized volunteer recruitment techniques, and training methods. At the end of the session, participants created an outline for pursuing similar projects at their own institutions.
Kinley led a workshop called “Come Play Civil Rights Compliance Bingo!” In this interactive session, participants competed to fill out a bingo card by compiling documentation often needed for a U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture civil rights audit.
“Collecting materials for an impending civil rights audit doesn’t have to be all forms and drudgery,” Kinley said.
From 2021 to 2022, Penn State Extension went through a routine civil rights audit. After the audit, it was clear that all extension staff needed additional training and resources to improve for future audits, Kinley noted. In response, she developed “Civil Rights Audit Bingo” to provide a customized training experience for county Master Gardener coordinators and program assistants.
In another presentation, Master Gardener Area Coordinators Andy Faust and Rick Kruczek discussed Penn State Master Gardener educational efforts related to the spotted lanternfly.
“All of these presentations are centered not just on the ‘what’ of our programs, but the ‘how,’” Kinley said. “With three presentations on the schedule, Penn State Extension is set to shine as a leader in this field.”
To learn more about the Master Gardener program in your area, visit the Penn State Extension website.