Supervised Agricultural Experimentation

  Jonathan Atherton & Joe Harper

The Agricultural Education Magazine, June 1993, Volume 65 p. 14-15

Agriculture has a rich and fascinating history, yet we seem to ignore the past. There have been many significant historical figures in the evolution and development of American agriculture, but none more significant than Thomas Jefferson. There is little doubt that Jefferson, often recognized as the father of agricultural experimentation, would be fascinated with the development and implementation of agricultural research in the United States today.

Some 200 years after Jefferson's life, it is time to get serious about agriscience. Over the past several years a great deal of time and effort have been devoted to developing the concept of incorporating agriscience into agricultural education instructional programs. If this rapidly evolving concept is to become a reality, it must be applied to a broad range of instructional activities. All facets of agricultural education, including, FFA and 4-H, as well as the supervised experience programs and adult education programs, need to broaden in scope to encompass agriscience research activities.

Agriculture programs must become actively involved in research in order to be considered viable agriscience programs. Agriscience without research is not science. Furthermore, science instruction must go beyond classroom and laboratory settings. Science is of little value until it is applied. Students must be afforded opportunities to not only learn science concepts in agriculture classrooms and laboratories, they Must also be able to apply scientific principles and concepts in agricultural and environmental settings. James Spiess provided an excellent example of this strategy in the November 1992 issue of The Agricultural Education Magazine with research on bacterial inoculant on alfalfa, resulting in the adoption of the technology by Students and adults in the community.

Applied Agricultural Science

Agriscience instruction must go beyond the classroom and the laboratory. The processes of technology transfer involves not only the research and development of new technologies, but also the adoption, diffusion, and improvement of technologies. In today's agricultural, business, and industrial environments it is not enough to merely expect students to be able to learn science without putting, into practice the applied components of science and technology.

Recent advances in scientific inquiry and technology transfer have expanded the traditional approaches of conducting research to actually conducting research on farms and ranches. These innovative techniques of scientific inquiry have been described as applied "on-farm research." On-farm research can be classified into three basic types:

1. Producer-initiated research: This type of on-farm research is designed, conducted, and evaluated by the agricultural producers. Professional researchers, either from industry and/or scientific communities, are not involved in conducting this type of research.

2. Researcher-initiated research: These research activities are conducted by professional researchers, with the cooperation of agricultural producers, on actual farm and production facilities. The professional researchers, either from industry or the scientific community, design, conduct, and evaluate the research activities. However, agricultural producers provide very little input for the research activities.

3. Participatory agricultural research: These research activities are conducted with cooperative planning of both professional researcher and agricultural producers. Agricultural producers are actively involved with the design, development, evaluation, and dissemination of research projects. This type of research appears to be the most appropriate for implementation in and application by secondary agriculture programs.

 These approaches for conducting on-site agricultural research are ideal for integrating into supervised agricultural experience programs, Students should not only have opportunities to develop supervised agricultural experience programs related to occupations and entrepreneurship, they should also have opportunities to conduct supervised experience programs of applied agriscience research.

Strategies for Applied Agricultural Research in Agricultural Education

The following strategies have been developed to facilitate the incorporation of agricultural research into agricultural education supervised experience programs. These strategies are based upon the concept of agriculture programs being actively involved in participatory agricultural research activities in the local communities.

First, we must incorporate research techniques and activities in agriculture programs. Of particular importance is the integration of applied agricultural research activities as components of supervised experience programs. This could be described as Supervised Agricultural Experimentation. Agriculture students would actively conduct applied research projects under the supervision of agriculture teachers. These strategies call for different approaches for thinking about supervised experience based on scientific inquiry. Students need to be taught the basic principle of conducting quality research. This proposed strategy is very consistent with the ideals of Total Quality management. The fundamental plan would be to:

1. Teach the basics of conducting research in the classroom.

2. Conduct experiments utilizing school facilities, such as agricultural mechanics laboratories, greenhouses, and school farms;

3. Develop supervised agricultural experiments where students apply research methods in real settings.

 Just a few examples of supervised agricultural experimentation projects would include: conducting on farm variety tests, determining wildlife populations, assessing water qualities, conducting marketing research, and conducting trials of conservation tillage practices.

Each of these projects would require fundamental applications of scientific principles and research methodologies. Teachers would assist in research design collection of data, analysis of information, interpretation of findings, reporting of findings, and follow-up strategies. Assisting students with these types of research activities will require considerable "re-tooling" of agriculture teachers and programs, which leads us to the second strategy.

Second, we need to significantly increase teacher knowledge about research methods. We need to devote more teacher pre-service and inservice activities to scientific inquiry, if we are to get serious about teaching agriscience. Every agriculture teacher and student will have a foundation of knowledge and skills in statistics, basic scientific research methods, and have applied experiences in scientific methods, and have applied experiences in scientific research projects.

Third, and most important, we must change our attitudes toward research We can no longer view research as something that we do not understand, are incapable of doing, and has little value in secondary agricultural education. The present trends in education are based upon critical thinking, preparation for technologies, technology transfer, systems and approaches, and applied sciences. The number of agriculture programs will continue to decline if we continue to ignore these trends.

In conclusion, agricultural education is facing a challenging future. Agriculture producers are becoming more and more involved in developing, conducting, evaluating, and disseminating research projects. Agricultural education must develop programs related to supervised agricultural experimentation. Thomas Jefferson believed in agricultural experimentation, and agricultural education must also. Agricultural education without agricultural experimentation is not education in or about agriculture for the year 2000.

References

Harper, J. & Shin. G. (1992). Technology transfer instructional models. 1991 Winter Meeting of the American Society of Agricultural Engineers, Chicago, IL.

Spiess, J. (1992). Using experimentation as experimental learning. The Agricultural Education Magazine. 65(5), 13-15.