Agricultural Cyberbiosecurity Education Resource Collection

The Agricultural Cyberbiosecurity Education Resource Collection contains resources for formal and non-formal agricultural educators working with middle school aged youth. Reference materials for facilitators introduce key concepts, youth-facing fact sheets present these concepts at a 6th grade level, and four hands-on activities integrate agriculture and cyberbiosecurity concepts.

Cyberbiosecurity is an emerging field that focuses on creating security measures for digital aspects of our food and agriculture systems, creating a structure and opportunity for a safe food system that can meet the large needs of a growing population and world. The Agricultural Cyberbiosecurity Education Resource Collection was developed through a project aimed at supporting formal and non-formal agricultural educators in integrating cyberbiosecurity topics and research-based strategies for engaging middle-school-aged girls in STEM into their educational programs. The project is an outreach effort of the Virginia Tech Center for Advanced Innovation in Agriculture and was supported, in part, by the CCI Southwest Virginia Node Cyberbiosecurity Seed Grant program and the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Women and Minorities in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Fields (WAMS) Grants Program, award #2020-38503-31950. The open educational resources in this collection were developed through partnerships with scientists, middle school teachers, and Extension agents.

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How to access the collection
The main landing page for this collection is https://doi.org/10.21061/cyberbiosecurity.

Published as open educational resources, all resources are provided in durable (PDF) and customizable (MS Word) formats. They are also hosted on the free, open-access, open educational resource repository called GoOpenVA in a unique resource collection, Ag Cybersecurity Virginia Tech, at https://goopenva.org/curated-collections/143.

ISBN for Agricultural Cyberbiosecurity Reference Guide
PDF: 978-1-957213-61-3

Included resources
1: Agricultural Cyberbiosecurity Reference Guide, which includes background information on key topics in agricultural cyberbiosecurity (Fact Sheets), a glossary, and context for the overall project and contributors

• Agricultural_Cyberbiosecurity_Reference_Guide.pdf

2: Fact Sheets, which cover nine topics (Big Data, Bioeconomy, Biomanufacturing, Biosecurity, Biotechnology, Cyberbiosecurity, Data Literacy, Precision Agriculture, Sensor) with separate facilitator and youth versions

• Big_Data_Fact_Sheet_Facilitator.pdf

• Bioeconomy_Fact_Sheet_Facilitator.pdf

• Biomanufacturing_Fact_Sheet_Facilitator.pdf

• Biosecurity_Fact_Sheet_Facilitator.pdf

• Biotechnology_Fact_Sheet_Facilitator.pdf

• Cyberbiosecurity_Fact_Sheet_Facilitator.pdf

• Data_Literacy_Fact_Sheet_Facilitator.pdf

• Precision_Agriculture_Fact_Sheet_Facilitator.pdf

• Sensors_Fact_Sheet_Facilitator.pdf

• Big_Data_Fact_Sheet_Youth.pdf

• Bioeconomy_Fact_Sheet_Youth.pdf

• Biomanufacturing_Fact_Sheet_Youth.pdf

• Biosecurity_Fact_Sheet_Youth.pdf

• Biotechnology_Fact_Sheet_Youth.pdf

• Cyberbiosecurity_Fact_Sheet_Youth.pdf

• Data_Literacy_Fact_Sheet_Youth.pdf

• Precision_Agriculture_Fact_Sheet_Youth.pdf

• Sensors_Fact_Sheet_Youth.pdf

3: Activities, which includes a Facilitator Guide and a Youth Activity Guide that address vulnerabilities in agricultural systems, traceability in hydroponic greens production, cybersecurity concerns with technologies commonly used in the livestock industry, and data quality in automation of food production.

• Food_System_Vulnerabilities_Facilitator_Guide.pdf
• Food_System_Vulnerabilities_Youth_Guide.pdf
• Hydroponics_Facilitator_Guide.pdf
• Hydroponics_Youth_Guide.pdf
• Livestock_Tracking_Facilitator_Guide.pdf
• Livestock_Tracking_Youth_Guide.pdf
• Soil_Nutrient_Facilitator_Guide.pdf
• Soil_Nutrient_Youth_Guide.pdf

MS Word documents are available as an editable, customizable option for items 1-3.

• Fact_Sheets_Facilitator_PDF_and_Customizable.zip
• Activities_Facilitator_and_Youth_Guides_PDF_and_Customizable.zip
• Editable_templates.zip

Resources were developed for use with a middle school youth audience, can be used in formal or non-formal educational settings, and are aligned with Virginia Standards of Learning for science and computer science and Career and Technical Education Competencies for agricultural education.

About the editors
David Smilnak
David is a Ph.D. student and graduate assistant at Virginia Tech. His work involves individual research towards his dissertation as well as writing papers, giving presentations, and coordinating groups of people for those projects. Generally, he's working with graduate students and faculty members at Virginia Tech, or agricultural professionals including teachers, Extension Agents, and farmers. He is working on a couple of projects, one of which is Initiating the Rural Cyberbiosecurity Workforce Pipeline Through Empowering Agricultural Educators and Supporting Middle School Girls. He enjoys the different types of people he gets to work with and occasionally he gets to go to a farm as well!

Hannah H. Scherer
Hannah is an Associate Professor and Extension Specialist at Virginia Tech. She is interested in how to make education more interesting and relevant to learners. In this role, she works with teachers, students, 4-H agents, and lots of other folks to try out new ideas for lessons and collect information to understand what works and what doesn’t. As part of this work, she was able to direct the Initiating the Rural Cyberbiosecurity Workforce Pipeline Through Empowering Agricultural Educators and Supporting Middle School Girls project and help make everything happen.

Special thanks
This work is supported through the CCI Southwest Virginia Node Cyberbiosecurity Seed Grant program, the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Women and Minorities in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Fields (WAMS) Grants Program, award #2020-38503-31950, with design, publication assistance, and project management support from the Open Education Initiative of the University Libraries at Virginia Tech.

Suggested citation
Smilnak, David, and Hannah H. Scherer, eds. (2023). Agricultural Cyberbiosecurity Education Resource Collection. Blacksburg: Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. https://doi.org/10.21061/cyberbiosecurity. Licensed with CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

Accessibility
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