Student: Emma Hay
Graduation date: May 2020
Type: Concentration (single major)
Date approved: November 2017
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Summary
I will explore the many different ways in which agriculture is practiced/taught, and in particular how those practices are communicated in and out of educational settings. Education is a viable step to reach a greater spectrum of the world, teaching the importance of analysis and qualitative/quantitative thinking. I will explore how various agricultural education systems are structured, regulated and implemented in universities, primary schools and informal education, such as nonprofits, in the United States.
When looking at human history in correspondence to environmental change, one finds that interactions between humans and their encompassing environments are not always positive ones (Costanza et al. 2007). This being said, when examining agricultural education, I cannot ignore the rising prominence of the anti-industrial practices/mindsets that are placed under the perspectives category of sustainability. Sustainability in itself has many implications in accordance to agricultural practices and education, yet there are no universal guidelines that specify what it actually means, which creates a bit of leeway and fuzziness. For example, there are many different types of sustainability (under the groupings of individual, global and organizational) that have each gained notability in modern day that all hold their own separate values, goals and practices attempting to create better relationships between humans and Earth (Brunsson 2015). One popular definition by Harwood reads, “Sustainable agriculture is a system that can evolve indefinitely toward greater human utility, greater efficiency of resource use and a balance with the environment which is which is favourable to humans and most other species” (Edwards et al. 1990). This ideology is not one that is regulated in its common use, and thus the definition changes from person to person and industry to industry. I will analyze sustainability’s variability of interpretations in an assortment of formal and informal educational settings in order to understand the relationship it holds with agriculture systems. I will also look at realistic policies that could ensure some extent of sustainability of agriculture and ecosystem services without compromising environmental integrity or public health (Tilman et al. 2002).
The implementation of environmental education in primary schools has previously had limited successes historically, due to the barriers of school teachers’ knowledge (Cutter-Mackenzie 2003) and effective implementation in school districts (Simmons 1989). The variations in success that come with environmental education are important to discuss as well, since value-basis environmental attitudes across the world also determine which areas will thrive and which areas won’t (Schultz 1999). Unfortunately, there is also a gap in the impact of achievement and accountability discourse on environmental education in US schools depended on race and class (Gruenewald 2007). These inequalities in education are important factors when examining how different curriculum and systems affect environmental attitudes and effective agricultural techniques.
Solutions to environmental problems extend much beyond our local realities and I believe that education is the way to extend our branches. There is an urgency and importance of learning to work with the Earth instead of against it, however, environmental education is found nowhere near the priority in formal schooling around the world. We need to look at the history to find out why this is the case, so that we can construct a way to change it (Palmer 2002). Agricultural education in particular is even less prominent in schooling systems, and yet the effects that it has on our environment, culture, economy and social issues are astronomical. To learn how it has evolved to what we see today and the ways in which we can keep evolving it, it is important to examine the intertwined relationship between agriculture and world history and their negative/positive effects upon each other (Cochrane 1979). Agriculture has not/is not stable currently or historically, for it fluctuates enormously, with advances and setbacks also affecting economics, sociology and political science (Wallerstein 2011). Our modern agri-business takes farming out of it’s cultural context, away from the farmers, forcing an estranged relationship between the people and the land (Berry 2015). I want to explore the ways in which agricultural education has/can alter these practices (if at all) and what techniques would be/are the most effective.
I am focused on the intersection of environmental education and agriculture, and their structures/implementations/regulations, (eventually) through a lens of sustainability. I am interested in the way K-12 schools, universities and new non-educational movements such as nonprofits and hands-on organizations, influence and are influenced by the structures already set in place of agriculture specifically set in the United States. Curriculum and educational structures determine the ways in which we learn, think and act upon these issues of agriculture, and I am eager to examine the actors that play those important roles.
References
Berry, Wendell. 2015. The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture. Counterpoint.
Brunsson, Karin. 2015. “Sustainability in a Society of Organisations.” Journal of Organisational Transformation & Social Change 12 (1): 5–21.
Cochrane, Willard W. 1979. The Development of American Agriculture: A Historical Analysis. U of Minnesota Press.
Costanza, Robert, Lisa Graumlich, and W. L. Steffen, eds. 2007. Sustainability or Collapse? An Integrated History and Future of People on Earth. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press in cooperation with Dahlem University Press.
Cutter-Mackenzie, Amy, and Richard Smith. 2003. “Ecological Literacy: The ‘missing Paradigm’ in Environmental Education (Part One).” Environmental Education Research 9, no. 4: 497–524.
Edwards, Clive A., and Richard R. Harwood. 1990. “Sustainable Agricultural Systems.” CRC Press.
Gruenewald, David A., and Bob Offei Manteaw. 2007. “Oil and Water Still: How No Child Left Behind Limits and Distorts Environmental Education in US Schools.” Environmental Education Research 13, no. 2: 171–88.
Palmer, Joy. 2002. Environmental Education in the 21st Century: Theory, Practice, Progress and Promise. Routledge.
Schultz, T. W. 1964. Transforming traditional agriculture. New Haven: Yale Univ. Pr. https://www.cabdirect.org/cabdirect/abstract/19641802933.
Simmons, Deborah A. 1989. “More Infusion Confusion: A Look at Environmental Education Curriculum Materials.” The Journal of Environmental Education 20, no. 4: 15–18.
Tilman, David, Kenneth Cassman, and Pamela Matson. 2002. “Agricultural Sustainability and Intensive Production Practices – ProQuest.” Accessed September 25. https://search.proquest.com/docview/204502023/fulltextPDF/B049DC9E81C04907PQ/1?accountid=2523
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2011. The Modern World-System I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. University of California Press.
Questions
- Descriptive:
What are the predominant agricultural techniques being taught in schools of agriculture within universities and/or research institutions, K-12 and experiential schools, and informal education such as non-profits and hands-on-organizations?
What are the assumptions in each that constitute “good” agriculture?
How do these conceptions of “good” agriculture correlate to ideologies of sustainable agriculture?
- Explanatory:
What restrictions and regulations surround agricultural education (if any)?
What are the reasons/goals for including agriculture in educational curriculum?
How do K-12, research institutions and informal educational settings differ in their ideologies of sustainable agriculture? How does this (if at all) affect how agricultural education is taught?
- Evaluative:
What are the benefits and consequences of different variations of agricultural education?
To what extent does education change how agriculture is being practiced?
What aspects of agriculture education should be included in school curriculum?
- Instrumental:
What approaches do research institutions use to improve upon current agricultural techniques?
In what ways should agriculture be taught in a range of educational settings in order to achieve their interpretation of sustainable agriculture?
In what ways should agriculture be taught in non educational settings in order to achieve their interpretation of sustainable agriculture?
Concentration courses
- SOAN 249 (Political Economy of Food, 4 credits) Fall 2017. This course examines the processes and regulations that go into the creation of food and the agricultural system behind it. This course will not be used to fill a breadth requirement.
- ENVS 460 (Environmental Law and Policy, 4 credits) Fall 2020. This course introduces environmental issues through examining legal and policy based perspectives.
- ED 205 (Education in a Complex World, 4 credits) Spring 2018. This course looks at education in the United States, and investigates potential solutions to the issues our education system currently faces.
- ED 450 (Environmental Education, 4 credits) Spring 2019. This course questions the state of specifically environmental education in the United States, including various curriculum and methods.
- ED 455 (Science Education in 21st Century, 4 credits) Spring 2020. This class questions the state of specifically science education in the United States and how it has changed in the 21ist century.
Arts and humanities courses
- PHIL 215 (Philosophy and the Environment, 4 credits). Pre-approved A&H course; no justification required.
- HIST 388 (What’s For Dinner?, 4 credits) Spring 2018. This class provides an historical basis for the development of modern US dietary patterns and the ethics behind food consumption.