Teaching Multiple Cohorts in the Same Classroom

Extension serves an increasingly diverse community, with a number of program participants being new farmers, minority farmers, and low-income farmers. Since the 1980s, Washington State University Skagit County Extension has provided a tractor safety course to older youth farmers, aged 12 to 15. In 2010, a nonprofit farm incubator showed interest in having its members participate in the course, and new adult farmers and Latino farmers were introduced into a classroom of older youths. Meeting the needs of these distinct farming cohorts in a single classroom required a multimodal approach, the success of which is replicable in other Extension education programs.