UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — More than 20 high school educators recently visited Penn State’s University Park campus as experiential learners for a new program focused on one of Pennsylvania’s highest-producing agricultural commodities: mushrooms.
The inaugural "Mushroom Mania" event was made possible through a continued partnership with the Global Teach Ag Network (GTAN) and the international agriculture and development (INTAD) graduate program in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.
“Mushroom Mania was designed to be a two-way learning experience,” said Melanie Miller Foster, GTAN co-founder and associate teaching professor of international agriculture. “It empowered INTAD students to translate their international research into practical knowledge for Pennsylvania educators, and in turn, gave teachers access to new ideas they can use to enrich their classrooms with global agricultural perspectives.”
Miller Foster and the Global Teach Ag Network team aimed to use the session to spark global conversations about food security, focusing on one of the state’s leading agricultural exports. According to the American Mushroom Institute, more than 60% of all mushrooms produced in the U.S. are grown in Kennett Square.
Morgan Vincent, GTAN graduate associate and a doctoral candidate in chemistry in Penn State’s Eberly College of Science, led the planning and production of the event.
“The inspiration for Mushroom Mania came from Amaya Lopez, a former GTAN intern and recent Penn State graduate, who came across a TikTok video that highlighted the fun that food can bring to learning,” Vincent said. “She shared the idea, suggesting that food, something familiar and universal, could be a powerful and approachable way to engage educators with global agricultural issues — sparking a bigger conversation about how the Global Teach Ag Network might use food to bridge science, sustainability and classroom relevance.”
The TikTok idea snowballed into the program’s newest complementary program called GTANEats, making Mushroom Mania the first event of its kind for the organization. Following the creation of the program and initial idea, Vincent spent more than six months preparing for the workshop alongside a small team that included Penn State faculty, Pennsylvania agricultural educators, GTAN contributors and INTAD graduate students.
Vincent also leveraged the mushroom knowledge of Nicholas Gabel, a doctoral student in the college’s Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology. Gabel assisted with the development of the event by procuring helpful contacts and developing teacher resources.
By participating in the festivities, educators such as Adam Serfass, of Berks County, gained ideas to incorporate mushrooms into their curriculum. Serfass registered for the event in hopes of strengthening his high school food science courses and bringing new, innovative ideas to his students.
“I have a document with about 50 notes that I’ve taken throughout the day for various project ideas, assignments, worksheet concepts and other educational methodologies that I will probably look to incorporate in my classes this coming fall,” said Serfass, an agricultural science teacher at Conrad Weiser High School.
Leaning on research and educational concepts, the day-long mushroom session featured a facility tour of the Penn State Mushroom Research Center, cooking courses, interactive sensory labs and guest speakers. INTAD students shared internationally scoped research with the group, highlighting sustainable ways to grow mushrooms and to lean on the crop to overcome troublesome growing conditions.
“I appreciated being up, moving and doing the things that we would ask our students to do,” said first-year teacher and recent agricultural and extension education graduate Emily Jay, who teaches at Tri-Valley High School in Hegins. “It is helpful to experience the labs yourself so you can get a feel for how you would use and adapt the activities for your students to take action.”
In addition to teaching content and lab ideas, the event sent participants home with starter mushroom growth kits to help kickstart their investigative learning with the commodity. The afternoon fostered networking among participants and event coordinators alike.
By connecting educators to a local commodity with a global impact, GTAN organizers said they hoped to spark conversations that extended beyond the scheduled workshop.
“Mushrooms are not just a niche topic — they open the door to broad, interdisciplinary issues central to global agriculture while also being very relevant to the Pennsylvania context,” Miller Foster said.
With Mushroom Mania as a successful pilot event for the program, Vincent said the team is planning continued programming for GTANEats and Pennsylvania educators.
“GTANEats is still growing, and we’re excited about what comes next,” Vincent said. “Our goal is to create a flexible framework that combines in-person and digital resources, built around food systems and aligned with global learning, using the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.”
To learn more about its programs, visit the Global Teach Ag Network.