Sanders presents community-based evaluation research for impact evaluation of an Extension health promotion project

Katie Sanders traveled to Oklahoma City, OK this month to present research from the Lamm Lab at the National American Association for Agricultural Education Conference. While there, she presented a research poster and an oral presentation.

Evaluating the Impact of a Community-Based Health Promotion Project

Cooperative Extension services in the health promotion space are tasked with understanding the impact of their programming for all populations they wish to serve. As part of the evaluation for Healthier Together Georgia, Sanders and co-author Dr. Alexa Lamm conducted a community survey in the five participating counties to determine the reach and uptake of project resources, which included community gardens and Grab-n-Go coolers with nutrient-dense food options at retail locations. Results indicated that while a majority of respondents used at least one Grab-n-Go cooler, few respondents used the community gardens. Evaluation results will be used to guide communication strategies, focusing on increased engagement at the gardens and connections to broader food systems locations, for the final year of the project.

Bringing Systems Thinking into the Classroom to Educate about Complex Issues

The agricultural and natural resource industry is tasked with managing demand and conservation in the context of a growing global population. Educators are responsible for developing critical and systems thinking skills for their students to be equipped for generating solutions to complex socio-scientific issues.

Sanders presents systems thinking research using hypothetical case scenarios at AAAE 2022.

Sanders presented research using hypothetical case scenarios to teach students about complex food systems issues and challenge students to think about the impacts of decision-making at the systems level. The research team, which included co-authors Allison Fortner, Kristin Gibson, Dr. Kevan Lamm, and Dr. Alexa Lamm, the research team found that using hypothetical case scenarios, or choose-your-own-adventure tools, can help students develop systems thinking capacity for new concepts introduced in the classroom.

Read more about the Lamm Lab’s systems thinking project here!