customers to choose from.” A majority of the respondents (60%) were educated about plants at higher educational institutions. The survey also found that education was an important factor in respondents’ knowledge of the issue: those who had learned about
149 POSTER SESSION 6F (Abstr. 379–386) Children and Community Education
A yearlong community education project was conducted in Edina, Minn., to teach residents about low-input lawn care techniques. Informational articles, a World Wide Web (Web) page, public seminar, and demonstration sites were the four major strategies employed by the project. Each of these teaching methods had a specific objective for influencing the lawn care knowledge and practices of Edina residents. Feedback from surveys at the completion of the project showed that printed articles had the highest familiarity. Based on these results, recommendations are given for other communities to implement low-input lawn care education programs.
One role of public horticulture institutions, and museums in general, is the education of their visitors and their community. While many gardens offer educational programming for adults and elementary school–aged children, the teenage audience seems
The State Botanical Garden of Georgia serves as an important academic resource for the University of Georgia by supporting interdisciplinary learning experiences in fields including botany, horticulture, environmental design, ecology, anthropology, geography, instructional technology, science education, entomology, forestry, and art. Field trips, independent study, internships, work-study and other botanical garden experiences strengthen and support the university's teaching, research and public service/outreach missions.
them. Phone (44%) and e-mail (40%) answer lines, along with small hands-on workshops (42%) and community education classes (41%) were information sources likely to be used. Lectures would be used by 26% of the respondents, but 40% said they were not
-secondary training in horticulture or a related discipline and PTE was a distant second (24%) ( Table 2 ). Table 2. Gardening experience and post secondary education in horticulture or related discipline of University of Minnesota Extension's Yard & Garden News
Abstract
The demands placed by institutions, departments, courses, and instructors on undergraduate horticulture majors have been justified as necessary to prepare students for careers in horticulture. This unanimity of general purpose is not paralleled by agreement on the specific means to achieve educational goals. Ballinger (2) questioned the adequacy of practical training for horticultural majors. Merritt (4) saw program innovation as lagging behind changing career requirements. Some (5) argue for greater standardization in horticulture education; others (6) oppose a rigid curriculum structure.
Abstract
Although I left the field of horticulture in 1934 and returned to it (as an administrator at that) only in 1972, I have been involved during the past two decades to some degree with graduate education and other training programs for foreign students. I shall rely here on whatever I have gained from that experience, which should contain a few common denominators applicable to the problems of training horticulturists.
There is an increasing demand for education in organic and sustainable agriculture from undergraduates, graduate students and extension agents. In this paper, we discuss highlights and evaluations of a multilevel approach to education currently being developed at North Carolina State University (NCSU) that integrates interdisciplinary training in organic and sustainable agriculture and the related discipline of agroecology through a variety of programs for undergraduate students, graduate students, and extension agents. These educational programs are possible because of a committed interdisciplinary faculty team and the Center for Environmental Farming Systems, a facility dedicated to sustainable and organic agriculture research, education, and outreach. Undergraduate programs include an inquiry-based sustainable agriculture summer internship program, a sustainable agriculture apprenticeship program, and an interdisciplinary agroecology minor that includes two newly developed courses in agroecology and a web-based agroecology course. Research projects and a diversity of courses focusing on aspects of sustainable and organic agriculture are available at NCSU for graduate students and a PhD sustainable agriculture minor is under development. A series of workshops on organic systems training offered as a graduate-level course at NCSU for extension agents is also described. Connecting experiential training to a strong interdisciplinary academic curriculum in organic and sustainable agriculture was a primary objective and a common element across all programs. We believe the NCSU educational approach and programs described here may offer insights for other land grant universities considering developing multilevel sustainable agriculture educational programs.