Extension can play a key role in providing food waste education nation-wide. This study is the first to evaluate the effects of environmentally focused lesson plans on elementary student knowledge and perceptions regarding food waste. Herein we provide suggestions on concepts to teach students for the greatest impact on food waste reduction. We…

This article describes the curriculum and program development process that was used to create the North Carolina Extension Master Food Volunteer program. We used a rigorous program development process, including conducting a needs assessment, piloting and evaluating the program, incorporating revisions based on feedback, and receiving external…

Within Extension, certain personnel, facilitators, and volunteers expected to conduct research in the form of program evaluation may have little or no training in effective research design and practices. This circumstance can lead to difficulties in the implementation of evaluation procedures, particularly with regard to program evaluation…

To introduce and provide equine-related activities to military personnel and their families, Utah State University Equine Extension created and implemented an effective program called Ride Utah! Equine-related activities have been shown to improve mental health and build strong family relationships in participating individuals. Ride Utah!…

This article describes how Extension professionals and university faculty collaborated on the planning, implementation, and evaluation of a conference to address a key societal issue. Needs assessment and evaluation results are presented as well as an explanation of how results were used in planning future conferences. With limited Extension…

As 4-H evolves to include a wide breadth of youths' modern interests, innovative educational opportunities and evaluation practices become necessary. Horsemanship and safety-based horse camps were created in response to a statewide challenge to develop competitive 4-H members and retain those members as they approach adolescence. This article…

The case study presented in this article is an example of an implementation evaluation. The evaluation investigated significant components of the implementation of a long-term environmental educational program. Direct observation, evaluation-specific survey data, and historical data were used to determine program integrity as identified by…

We conducted a process evaluation of the Shaping Healthy Choices Program, a multicomponent school-based nutrition program, when implemented in partnership with University of California (UC) CalFresh and UC Cooperative Extension (UCCE). There were positive impacts on participating students, but results varied across counties, possibly due to…

We conducted case studies on four Connecticut dairy farms to evaluate how well farmers implemented their nutrient management plans (NMPs). Our findings can help Extension educators develop programs to improve NMPs and NMP adoption by farmers. We identified three educational topic areas that would likely increase NMP understanding and acceptance:…

This article describes the development, implementation, and exploratory evaluation of a professional development series that addressed educators' knowledge and use of the terms "research-based" and "evidence-based" within Human Sciences Extension and Outreach at one university. Respondents to a follow-up survey were more likely…

The Growing Healthy Kids Program is a school-based nutrition education program that teaches students in Kindergarten through 2nd grade about healthy eating, physical activity, and how their body uses food. Pre- and post-knowledge data is collected from the students to measure changes in nutrition knowledge. In the first 2 years of the program,…

A hallmark of Extension includes the involvement of stakeholders in research and program needs assessment, design, implementation, evaluation, and reporting. A data party can be used to enhance this stakeholder involvement specifically in data analysis. This type of event can not only increase client participation in Extension programming and…

While the importance of evaluation program offerings is acknowledge by Extension educators, less emphasis is given to understanding program implementation. Simply assessing program impact without a clear understanding of the degree to which a program was actually implemented can result in inaccurate findings. The effective evaluation of both…

The study reported here involved Cooperative Extension as a key research partner and was guided by a community-based participatory research approach and a feasibility study framework. The research objective was to assess four indicators of feasibility (i.e., acceptability, demand, implementation, and limited-effectiveness) of a gardening and…

Assessing program impact can provide useful program evaluation data. It also provides a basis for program development, marketing, and justification. This article discusses recent impact evaluation efforts and findings of a long-time Extension program; referred to as Business Retention and Expansion (BR&E). How such information can be…