Two agriculture students from UA Cossatot, Ryan Vance and Misty Goings, applied to present a poster on the GSTARS (GIS Skilled Technicians in Agriculture and Related Sciences) grant at the NSF ATE conference and were both students were selected to participate in this year’s virtual conference.

Ryan Vance, a Natural Resources major, is collecting data using GIS applications on feral swine in Southwest Arkansas. He also received an FFA Day of Service mini-grant to fund building hog traps to place on private property. Payton Hibbs, who is majoring in agriculture science at UA Cossatot, has also worked extensively on this project helping set-up traps and collect data.

Misty Goings created a tool to collect GIS information on the invasive Chinese Tallow trees. Last year, she also obtained skills in a forest management workshop in UA Cossatot’s Introduction to Forestry class that will allow her to offer management assistance to people who submitted sightings of the tree on private property. Misty is majoring in STEM and Natural Resources at UA Cossatot, and plans to transfer to UA Fayetteville in the spring.

With the support of the National Science Foundation (NSF), the American Association of Community Colleges will host the 28th National ATE Principal Investigators’ Conference on October 18-22, 2021, as a virtual event.

The conference will host more than 850 NSF ATE grantees and their project cohorts to focus on the critical issues related to advanced technological education. Fundamental persons working on ATE projects across the country will partake in the hybrid event. Conference partakers represent community colleges, business and industry, secondary school systems, and four-year universities covering projects in a wide variety of areas, such as information technology, engineering technology, micro-and nanotechnologies, chemical technology, biotechnology, and other program areas.

The primary goal of the GSTARS project is to design and implement a curriculum that meets the region’s need for technician-level GIS skills in agriculture and related science industries. In addition, the $299,635 grant will create pathways for future GIS Technicians to enter the local workforce.

“This grant has created an amazing opportunity to integrate technology and technical skills, such as GIS data collection and drone operations, into our agriculture and science programs. We are excited to see what our students achieve over the next several years thanks to the resources made possible though the GSTARS grant," said GSTARS team leader and agriculture faculty, Kelli Harris.

To learn more about this grant and conference, contact Kelli Harris at kharris@cccua.edu.