Student Summer Beery recently competed against professors and Ph.D. candidates and won an award at the 90th National FFA Convention in Indianapolis.

Dr. Thomas Paulsen and Summer Beery

Morningside College student Summer Beery recently competed against professors and Ph.D. candidates and won an award at the 90th National FFA Convention in Indianapolis.

Beery received a Distinguished Research Paper Presentation Award at the 36th Annual National Agricultural Mechanics Professional Development Blue Ribbon Papers Research Conference that was held during the FFA convention. Beery was the only undergraduate student to have a paper accepted for presentation at the conference.

Beery’s presentation, “Teaching with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Perceptions of Iowa School-Based Ag Education Instructors,” focused on what Iowa agriculture teachers thought about implementing drones into their curriculum. Beery conducted a survey asking teachers to rate the importance of different drone skills as well as their capacity to teach them. Discrepancies between importance and capacity to teach would indicate training opportunities.

Drones are becoming an important part of modern agriculture. They can be used for crop-scouting, mapping, collecting data, checking on livestock and more.

Dr. Thomas Paulsen, professor and chair of applied agricultural and food studies at Morningside, served as Beery’s mentor for this project. She also presented her research at the North Central Regional Research Meeting of the American Association for Agricultural Education held at Iowa State University in Ames.

Beery is the daughter of Adam and Sarah Beery of Anthon, Iowa. She is a 2015 graduate of Maple Valley-Anthon Oto High School.