Recently agriculture has suffered from a shortage of technically skilled employees with a knowledge of horticulture science and the opportunities available.  Professional and academic societies have joined forces to offer marketing tools to students and youth.  An example is Seed Your Future a program of Longwood Gardens and American Society of Horticultural Science with numerous financial supporters including green industry, societies, universities and individuals. In addition the Eastern North America Region of International Plant Propagator's Society has established a sizable fund for student scholarships to encourage attendance at conferences and conference tours. In 2017 the 20 students funded told the ER-IPPS officers that most were unaware of what the horticulture industry was and what opportunities there were and they wished they had known how the process of growing plants was and exciting new technologies being used to grow plants.

In response to a successful hands-on in-the -field education visit to the University of Kentucky Research and Education Center (UKREC) by students of Hopkins County Schools to find out about horticulture Dr. Zenaida Viloria, then Extension Associate for Nursery Crops, felt there was an opportunity for the UKREC Horticulture Group to share their expertise and to educate elementary students about horticulture and agriculture and the sustainable practices used in growing crops.  Dr. Viloria submitted a grant to the Sustainability Challenge Grant program and was successful with her proposal.

With colleagues across all departments of the College of Agriculture, Food and Environment developed a program of growing raised bed vegetable, fruit and ornamental plants at elementary schools in Caldwell and Lyon Counties and at the UKREC.  In support of that activity hands-on programs were presented to the students at the UKREC in the late spring pf 2018.

449 students utilized training at the UKREC to plant the raised beds at their respective schools. Those students visited the UKREC for additional training on a diversity of topics including soils, vermiculture,  plant taxonomy and identification, carbon footprint evaluation of the home environment, insect benefits and pests, plant diseases and disorders.

From this initial effort a new grant has been submitted to develop tools that would allow any County Extension Program and local schools to develop a similar program to introduce students to the importance of horticultural and agricultural science to our lives.