The Irrigation Association, Fairfax, Virginia, has opened registration for its Irrigation Landscape Faculty Academy webinar series taking place June 22-24.
Intended for irrigation landscape educators, the series seeks to not only provide new information to attendees, but to give them the ability to pass their new knowledge on to their students.
“(The Irrigation Landscape Faculty Academy) provides practical, fundamental and advanced information and concepts that can be used within multiple classrooms and settings,” says Brad Jakubowski, instructor of plant sciences at Penn State University, who will lead two Faculty Academy sessions on irrigation components and technologies and using weather apps for effective management. “The ILFAs provide useful forums for faculty to ask questions as well as share their own experiences and expertise in teaching irrigation and water management.”
The series kicks off June 22 with teaching techniques for irrigation components and technologies from noon to 1:30 p.m. ET. Led by Jakubowski and Warren Gorowitz, CLIA, of Hunter Industries, attendees will learn the anatomy of an irrigation system and techniques to teach it to their students. Irrigation components that will be covered include piping, valves, controllers and sprinklers. An at-home irrigation components kit will be provided to all attendees for hands-on demonstration during the session.
From 2:30 to 4 p.m. on the same day, Don Davis, CIC, CID, of SiteOne Landscape Company, and Justin Snyder of Alamance Community College will lead a webinar on teaching techniques for soils and soil water. They will discuss how soil formation occurs over time resulting in varying soil profiles and texture classifications and how the texture affects drainage, permeability, percolation and porosity. Attendees will learn about soil water-holding capacity and how available water directs the scheduling of an irrigation cycle.
Other topics include two-wire irrigation control systems taught by Mike Hartley of Turf Equipment & Supply Co. Inc. from noon to 1:30 p.m. June 23; sprinkler irrigation uniformity and precipitation rates taught by Tom Glazener, CGIA, CIC, CID, CLIA, CLWM, of Rain Bird Corporation, from 2 to 3 p.m. June 23; and weather apps for effective water management taught by Jakubowski from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. June 23.
Ending the series will be a roundtable discussion on teaching styles, assessments and challenges from noon to 1:30 p.m. June 24. Panelists will consist of Skyler Westergard, CPH, CLT, of Brigham Young University-Idaho, and Deying Li of North Dakota State University. Small-group discussions will cover how to prioritize teaching objectives based on time constraints, how to balance different teaching tools and methodologies in the classroom, and how to assess student learning.
Highlighting the importance of the Faculty Academies, Jakubowski shares that when he needed to set up a misting irrigation system on Penn State’s campus for an associate’s research project, he was able to use materials and parts he had acquired from a previous Faculty Academy.
“It saved an immense amount of time, energy and expense in determining what we needed, how to find the materials and install them,” Jakubowski says. “I was also able to reach out to people I met and ask them how to complete that installation most efficiently and learn from their mistakes and successes.”
The deadline to register in order to receive an at-home irrigation components kit is June 3. The final registration deadline for the Irrigation Landscape Faculty Academy is June 14.
For additional info and registration, visit bit.ly/3FC2kXg.
