Introduction, including How to use the Guides

This collection of activity guides is designed to enhance the sustainable agriculture learning experiences of students who visit college and university farms and similar farm programs that are involved in youth education. We hope that these activities will provide such visitors with lasting knowledge, understanding and appreciation of some of the principles and practices of sustainable agriculture, as well as the promise and opportunities that sustainable agriculture represents for them as individuals and for all of society.

There are nine field based activities focusing on diverse activities and concepts that can be completed within one hour. These experiential activities emphasize the cycle of reflecting, observing, thinking, doing, and reflecting again. We and many of our friends and colleagues (see Acknowledgments) have found such contextually integrated learning experiences to be especially well suited to learning about sustainable agriculture.

Suggestions on how to use the Activity Guides

Each Activity Guide is presented in a lesson plan format that should be familiar to most educators. It includes background information, key learning concepts and objectives, a list of needed materials, a list of the knowledge needed by the activity leader, key references and information sources, an outline of the field activity, and ideas for discussion and reflection. Each activity was designed as a stand-alone exercise lasting one hour in length in order to fit within the short time periods allotted to many farm visits. However, these activities can be adapted easily and productively to longer time frames and the relationships between the concepts and practices included within the various activities can be explored. All learning experiences are unique and farm-based learning experiences are influenced greatly by the specific features of the farm, the season, the farm visitors, the activity leader, and other factors. Educators and farmers are innovators and we encourage those who use these guides to modify and improve them to match their unique situations and needs.

We also hope that the guides will stimulate users to develop their own activities that address other practical farm tasks and sustainable agriculture principles. We encourage users to explore other pairings of hands-on activities and underlying principles and theories. Clearly, we are presenting only a minute fraction of the myriad educational activities and pairings of principles with practices that are possible on farms. We have been happy to see that students and teachers have responded very positively to the opportunity to participate in meaningful and useful farm activities and to match those activities with inquiry, reflection, and discussion.

Why and how the Activity Guides were developed

Many educators working in the field of sustainable agriculture have successfully developed curricula and in-field educational activities for college students. In addition, there are many excellent hands-on learning activities related to sustainable agriculture for primary school children. However, there are far fewer activities that have been developed for high school and college students on short-term visits to farms. The activities included here are directed towards helping fill the gap between activities focused on school age children and full-time college courses.

These activities are aimed specifically at connecting the principles and theory behind sustainable agriculture with useful and necessary tasks and activities performed on working farms. The activity guides were developed through a collaborative process that involved many participants and numerous steps. This process is summarized below.

Topic Selection:

Themes and content of the activities were selected through a participatory process that involved a group of fifteen educators from ten institutions who work both in sustainable agriculture and on college and university farms. This group first prioritized a list of topics and themes related to the principles and theory of sustainable agriculture. The group then developed a list of possible hands-on farm tasks. These tasks were selected based on two criteria: 1, importance and usefulness to the farm and 2. feasibility of completion within a one hour time frame. UC Davis Student Farm staff then matched the prioritized list of themes and topics with the list of specific field tasks. These matched themes and tasks formed the basis of activities that could be tested for possible use in these activity guides.

Activity Development, Testing and Refinement:

Each activity linking principles and theories of sustainable agriculture with specific farm tasks was developed, along with background material and resources, reflection questions, and introduction into a draft activity guide that could be tested with various collaborators in different parts of California. Draft activity guides were then tested with high school and college students who were visiting college or other educational farms. Feedback from the participating students, their teachers and the activity leaders were used to modify and improve each activity. Revised activities were re-tested and additional feedback was solicited from participants. After this series of testing was complete, final activity guides were developed and compiled into this collection.