ANIMAL AGRICULTURE IN A CHANGING CLIMATE ONLINE COURSE: AN EFFECTIVE TOOL FOR CREATING EXTENSION COMPETENCY

There is a need to create competency among Extension professionals on the topic of climate change adaptation and mitigation in animal agriculture. The Animal Agriculture in a Changing Climate online course provides an easily accessible, user-friendly, free, and interactive experience for learning science-based information on a national and regional level. The web-based curriculum is proving to be a useful tool and valuable resource for Extension educators in gaining knowledge and being better equipped to inform and influence livestock and poultry producers regarding climate issues. Introduction Given that climate change is a new topic for many Extension educators and other livestock advisors, a need exists for science-based content to provide subject matter competence and tools for educational programs. A national team of Extension faculty and professionals was funded to build Extension capacity with the goal of informing and influencing livestock and poultry producers and consumers of animal products in all regions of the United States. The primary goal of the work is to foster adoption of animal production practices that are environmentally sound, climatically compatible, and economically viable. Providing a Free, High-Quality Interactive Online Resource To help meet the goals of the project, a free online course was developed to provide a high-quality, user-friendly platform for educating a geographically diverse population of Extension educators and Elizabeth Whitefield Research Associate Washington State University Puyallup, Washington e.whitefield@wsu.edu David Schmidt Research and Teaching Engineer University of Minnesota St. Paul, Minnesota schmi071@umn.edu Lindsay WittSwanson Assistant Director of the Bureau of Sociological Research University of Nebraska–Lincoln Lincoln, Nebraska lwitt2@unl.edu David Smith Extension Program Specialist Texas A&M University College Station, Texas dwsmith@ag.tamu.ed u Jennifer Pronto Research Assistant Cornell University Ithaca, New York jlp67@cornell.edu Pam Knox Public Service Assistant University of Georgia Athens, Georgia pknox@uga.edu Crystal Powers Extension Engineer University of Nebraska–Lincoln Lincoln, Nebraska cpowers2@unl.edu farm advisors. This self-paced course can be completed in 10 to 12 hr and is offered through Moodle, a web-based, open-source learning platform. Course lesson topics include climate and weather trends, impacts on animal agriculture, risk management and adaptation,