Secondary agricultural education programs are built around a three-circle model, incorporating the components of classroom and laboratory instruction, Supervised Agricultural Experiences (SAE), and FFA to define a total program. Within this model there are areas of overlap where components may be done simultaneously, suggesting moments when all three can be done congruently. The National Chapter Award (NCA), an award program through the National FFA Organization, distinguishes agricultural education programs who emphasize the FFA mission and vision, by conducting activities that grow leaders, build communities and strengthen agriculture. The NCA was specifically designed to recognize programs that provide educational experiences to their entire membership. Although the NCA stems from the FFA component, there are opportunities to incorporate classroom and laboratory instruction and/or SAE while meeting award standards and encouraging student engagement. Experiential teaching methods that increase and enhance student engagement in agricultural education have been studied extensively, but with a common thread that student learning is most impactful when using hands-on, real-world learning practices.

The objective of this investigation is to analyze the use of the NCA to increase student involvement in an agricultural education program while simultaneously providing experiential learning experiences that include two or more components of the Three-Circle Model for Agricultural Education. This presentation introduces a teaching resource handbook which discusses the NCA criteria in-depth, while emphasizing opportunities that engage all students within an agricultural education program. Communicating these ideas with preservice and in-service agriculture teachers can assist teacher education programs in guiding educators on the potential use of an award framework to fulfill goals for agricultural education programs. Professional development with current agriculture teachers and the distribution of the developed resource has anecdotally increased interest in the NCA within [state] and provided additional support for program planning.