Sharing Climate Knowledge, Supporting Our Communities

The UHM’s College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources’ Cooperative Extension Services (CES) paired with DCDC’s instructional design team to design a series of in-person forums for extension agents, centered around climate adaptation. These forums, part of the Pacific Islands Agroforestry Adaptation Initiative (PIAAI), feature a variety of climate-related topics which prepare Hawaiʻi and the U.S. Affiliated Pacific Islands CES programs to better sustain food security, ecosystem services, and local health and livelihoods.

DCDC’s instructional designers worked with the PIAAI curriculum development team to incorporate strategies that foster learning the concepts and science behind climate adaptation. They worked at aligning the training objectives with the audiences’ areas of interest to craft an authentic, enjoyable, and relevant learning experience. The forums also incorporated a variety of educational mediums such as formal presentations, panel discussions, field-based learning, and pair/group activities. To evaluate the efficacy of the forums, the team developed and administered a post-forum survey to gather lessons learned for future trainings.