Educational offerings that utilize environmental and agricultural themes can ... both opportunities to transmit new knowledge as well as assess performance and ...
ENVIRONMENTAL AND AGRICULTURAL LITERACY EDUCATION D. HUBERT1, A. FRANK1 and C. IGO2 1
Southwest Center for Agricultural Health, Injury Prevention and Education, University of Texas Health Center at Tyler, 11937 US Highway 271, Tyler, TX, USA 75708-3154 2 Department of Agricultural Education, Communications, and 4-H Youth Development, Oklahoma State University, 448 Agriculture Hall, Stillwater, OK 74078-6031
Abstract. Educational offerings that utilize environmental and agricultural themes can reinforce basic education for students in kindergarten through twelfth grade (K-12) while also teaching about the environment and agricultural methods and products. A curriculum guide about the environment and food and fiber production was created for K-12 teachers. These materials were evaluated for their effectiveness in increasing student knowledge using elementary classes in several states. It was noted through pre/post tests that younger students, in general, made greater gains. Within five thematic areas, the greatest overall improvement was shown in themes related to the environment. Environmental topics covered, all in the context of agricultural themes, included the need to preserve shared natural resources including land, water, and air as well as the managing of the ecosystem and the use of non-renewable energy resources. Clearly such classroom guides have utility in teaching young students about environmental issues and their relationship to other important topics. This guide and its corresponding Website enhance both opportunities to transmit new knowledge as well as assess performance and impact on behavior. Keywords: agricultural education, agricultural literacy, curriculum, environmental education, food and fiber systems literacy
1. Introduction Educational topics inclusive of agriculture and environmental topics are neither new nor unique. Agricultural education professor and historian John Hillison recently published findings on the history of integrating agricultural themes or concepts into academic areas of study, particularly science. He noted that the primary school agricultural curriculum was preceded in the latter part of the 1800s by a nature-study movement that aimed at bringing reality to science lessons in elementary school classrooms. This movement was in reaction to the use of less interesting methods of teaching science, and noted nature-study usage in the states of New York and Massachusetts (Hillison, 1998). Although there was no indication that student learning of science principles increased, it may be inferred that inclusion of nature-study topics made the subject matter more relevant to students’ lives in the still very rural United States. As countries develop and move to more urbanized societies, basic knowledge and understanding of the natural environment and its interrelated systems appears to have declined. Whatever the reason, from video games to other less outdoors-oriented activities, urban youth populations in general appear to have Water, Air, and Soil Pollution 123: 525–532, 2000. c
2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
526 lost connections with the natural environment and the respect and admiration associated with the understanding of its systems through participation or interaction. This loss of ecological and biological knowledge gained through hands on involvement has raised the level of concern from both agricultural and environmental organizations, among others, especially within the United States. The purpose of this paper is to heighten awareness to a recently developed framework for improving food and fiber literacy in K-12 students.
2. Agricultural and Environmental Literacy Development As America’s urban sectors expanded and engulfed more farmland during the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s, agricultural organizations realized a lack of knowledge and understanding of agriculture and agricultural processes by the general public could have been part of the problem of this urban sprawl and loss of productive acreage. The continued encroachment by cities into productive, arable lands seemed to emphasize the lack of respect for farming as small farmers were either forced or bought out of their profession. There appeared to be hope that creating a greater public understanding of agriculture would increase agriculture’s importance in America. This, in turn, might offset the agricultural near-sightedness acquired by land developers and the large support of a generally agriculturally illiterate public. An organized and increased effort to re-educate Americans, beginning with elementary students, was beginning to take shape. In 1988 the National Research Council’s Committee on Agricultural Education in Secondary Schools proposed that an agriculturally literate person would understand the food and fiber system in relation to its history, economic, social, and environmental significance (National Research Council, [NRC] 1988). Additionally the Committee recommended that “all students should receive at least some systematic instruction about agriculture beginning in kindergarten or first grade and continuing through twelfth grade” and “the subject matter …about agriculture be broadened…to include the utilization of environmental and resource management.” According to Terry et al. (1996), the need for societal knowledge about agriculture is based on two primary factors. First, as consumers of agricultural goods, people need to understand basic principles of food and fiber sources, marketing, distribution, and nutrition. Secondly, they hypothesized that because of the roles citizens play in policy decisions, people need to understand the impact of agriculture upon society, the economy, and the environment. There is a similar need for the understanding of environmental positions associated with agriculture as well. In this context, controversial agricultural and environmental issues are often the results of competing factions and there is an equal significance for environmentally and agriculturally literate populations throughout the world.
527 Some assistance in creating agriculturally literate populations can be found in the use of mass media to provide correct information about agricultural and environmental issues with science knowledge providing the best facilitating means to understanding. Rogers (1983) and Terry (1994) indicated the most important factor contributing to consumer awareness and understanding about science and technology is mass media (as cited by Vestal and Briers, 1999). Recently, increased media coverage of environmental controversies appears to have magnified the natural resource connections between the environment and agriculture. This media awareness has not been entirely positive for the natural resource utilizing industries of agriculture, forestry, and fishing, and their corresponding efforts to create sustainable societies. Often public perception, or misperception, is affected by television and periodical coverage overdramatizing these industries’ activities and impacts on non-renewable resources. However, the apparent public disapproval of some natural resource utilizing industries portrayed in the press may be found not only in mass media’s focus on the negative influence of agricultural production on the environment, but also in the lack of understanding of these matters by journalists. Analysis by Terry et al. (1996) of agriculture/environment and public policy news articles revealed a high percentage of unfavorable, judgmental sentences and a high degree of journalistic bias in them. Of the three most popular news periodicals in U.S. circulation in 1995, Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News and World Report, only 13 articles were printed with agricultural issues as the main topic during the entire year. Eight of the agricultural articles were classified by the researchers as environmentally related. Situations such as this (the largest means of information dissemination contributing to public misinterpretation) provide the motivation to engender societies that can synthesize, analyze, and communicate basic information about agriculture and the environment. However, for these societal changes to evolve, we must focus on learners when they are most susceptible to new thoughts and ideas.
3. Curricula/Teaching Resources About Agriculture and the Environment 3.1. A GUIDE TO FOOD AND FIBER SYSTEMS LITERACY The challenge for educators in infusing food and fiber systems literacy into core academic subjects is recognizing existing connections. Connecting biology and life science, as well as environmental science to agriculture is easy. Other core academic subjects can be more challenging to infuse with agricultural topics. Without detailed guidance for attaining knowledge about agriculture and the environment, students, as they mature into adults, will be asked to make decisions about matters they know little about. It was determined that students of all ages, if presented information in a systematic manner, would become
528 better decision-making adults in matters relating to agriculture and the environment. A Guide to Food and Fiber Systems Literacy (referred to as the Guide) was planned to facilitate these types of challenges. Developed at Oklahoma State University, the Guide was the culmination of four years of work in developing and testing a curriculum framework of agricultural themes, standards and benchmarks, and supporting material needed to produce agriculturally literate students. The Guide also includes explanatory narrative needed for implementing Food and Fiber Systems Literacy in schools. Themes are sectioned into Understanding Food and Fiber Systems; History, Culture, and Geography; Science, Technology, Environment; Business and Economics; and Food, Nutrition, and Health. Grade specific benchmarks guide teachers to make appropriate academic connections to agriculture and environmental topics, with sample lessons included to facilitate this process. It is hoped that implementation of the Guide by schools and districts across all grade levels will produce better-educated students so their agricultural and environmental issue decision-making capabilities will be enhanced. To facilitate distribution of the Guide, an Internet Website was developed for teachers and other interested educators and administrators (http://food_fiber.okstate.edu). The use of the Guide to provide direction for classroom instruction about agricultural and environmental topics and ultimately increase student learning in these areas was studied. A pilot testing of the Guide was conducted in three K-8 schools during the 1997-98 academic year in the states of California, Montana, and Oklahoma (one school per state). These case studies included 366 students, 177 students, and 257 students, respectively. The researchers used a pretest and posttest methodology to determine gains in students’ food and fiber knowledge for the grade groupings K-1, 2-3, 4-5, and 6-8. These grade groupings correspond with the grade-grouped benchmarks in the Guide. Using SAS for analysis procedures, statistically significant differences in pretest and posttest group results were found. Table I provides a summary of these results. Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation Coefficients were computed to determine whether a relationship existed between these knowledge score differences and the number of instructional connections teachers made to Food and Fiber Systems, i.e., the number of times teachers referred to agricultural topics in lessons. Table II summarizes the result of the analysis. Both the Montana site and the Oklahoma site showed a strong correlation, 0.621 and 0.586 respectively, between the test score differences and the number of instructional connections made by teachers, with the Oklahoma site returning a significant statistical difference. Pooling the Montana and Oklahoma data to create a composite yielded a 0.603 correlation coefficient and the computed difference was statistically significant as well. Knowledge score increases of 10 percent or better were seen when the number of reported connections rose to 20 or above. California data were not included in the correlation due to structural differences between the California school and the other two schools.
529 TABLE I Students’ food and fiber knowledge levels as measured by pretest and posttest scores Pretest State:
Grade
CA: MT: OK: CA: MT: OK: CA: MT: OK: CA: MT: OK:
K-1
2-3 4-5a
6-8b
Posttest Mean
n
Mean
n
15 54 53 42 38 73 --49 75 502 50 67
54.8 72.1 77.3 71.0 75.6 79.3 --67.2 66.1 31.8 63.7 57.9
12 50 53 39 35 72 --47 74 315 45 58
Note. df for all calculations was 1. a There was no 4-5 component in CA
57.3 88.8 86.1 76.8 89.4 88.4 --71.2 72.7 29.3 62.4 55.0
Difference +2.5 +16.7 +8.8 +5.8 +13.8 +9.1 --+4.0 +6.6 -2.5 -1.3 -2.9
F-value p 0.86 74.75 21.33 8.83 46.28 41.24 ----5.13 15.11 21.45 0.23 1.53
0.3555 0.0001* 0.0001* 0.0032* 0.0001* 0.0001* -----0.0239* 0.0001* 0.0001* 0.6315 0.2157
*p
