The state of Kentucky's agricultural education programs in high schools have several career pathways in which students may choose to emphasize. One career pathway is the agribiotechnoloy pathway, which is only taught in 10 schools in Kentucky. Due to the nature of future STEM careers being unknown, agribiotechnology courses in high school play an important role in enhancing students’ perspectives and learning experiences in the fields of STEM. Since there is no current agribiotechnology curriculum for Kentucky high school agricultural teachers to utilize, the Principal Extension Specialist/STEM Outreach Education Coordinator in the Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Department, with advice from others, selected Introduction to Biotechnology as the first unit, which was created for the agribiotechnology career pathway.

The Introduction to Biotechnology Unit is made up of five lessons. The lessons are made up of complex topics, including systems, sustainability, biotechnology, ethics in agriculture and rethinking ethics. Teachers in Kentucky were recruited to participate in piloting the Unit through the Kentucky Department of Education’s Office of Career and Technical Education contacts. Teachers piloted the Unit after participating in an overview webinar of the curriculum and the project. Nine teachers, of which one was a student teacher, and one faculty member (from outside of UK) participated in one of the four webinars hosted to orientate the teachers to the Unit. Of the ten individuals completing a webinar, eight (80%) submitted letters of participation approval from their school principals to pilot the curriculum. Seven teachers completed the pilot of each of the five lessons and completed the teacher follow-up survey on the Unit. The teachers provided invaluable feedback to help the Specialist improve the curriculum before releasing the curriculum to the public. Teachers stated the Unit lessons were “very interesting” and contained “some really awesome activities.” The curriculum reached a total of 140 students. Seventy-one percent (71.43%) of the teachers stated their students were more interested in learning more about biotechnology by the end of the Unit. Seventy-one percent (71.43%) of the teachers stated they planned to implement this Unit in their class in the future, followed by 14.29% who said maybe. As a result of teacher feedback, the Unit is being edited to accommodate teacher comments for improvement as well as adding PowerPoint teaching files.