C591 CSSA K-12 Committee.

The CSSA K-12 committee was formed at the beginning of the year.  We have 11 members representing diverse CSSA disciplines and regions of the country.  Our goals are to facilitate access to crop science resources by K-12 teachers and students, and to build awareness of all crop science disciplines. Our priorities at the outset are to: 1) engage in outreach through participation in festivals and conferences 2) develop web-site resources and 3) publish a children's book.  Our primary activity this year has been to present a booth at the USA Science and Engineering Festival, held in Washington, D.C.  Member Shawn Conley is spear-heading an effort to develop a children’s book entitled “Coolbean the Soybean.”  We envision that other similar books may follow.  A series of books would allow other crops to be represented and provide greater opportunity for diverse discipline-related content.  Our initial effort to establish a web-presence will be to provide a gateway to existing web-sites that already have appropriate crop-related content. A longer term goal will be to make grade-specific instructional modules available.