Providing Professional Development to Educational Professionals for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in Agriculture.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also called drones, have been used commercially since the early 1980s. Today however, practical application for UAVs are expanding faster than ever in a variety of industries. UAV technology has given the agriculture industry the possibility of a technological makeover. Specifically, UAVs give the opportunity for improved crop supervision, soil and field analyses, and the ability to more closely and timely monitor crops (Mazur & Wisniewski, 2016). In order to keep up with increasing demands, agriculture has to utilize every technology available to the industry. Based on a global report published by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), the market of UAVs in agriculture is estimated at $32.4 billion (Mazur & Wisniewski, 2016). UAVs will allow individual farms to be highly data-driven, which will lead to an increase in productivity and yields. Due to the low cost, UAVs can be used for better crop management practices. Despite the growth in technology and opportunities to utilize UAV in agricultural practices, there is little being done to prepare students for careers utilizing this technology