Education Commons^™

Liquid Border, Yingfan Jia

Masters Theses

A River is a mighty and constantly-evolving force, leaving behind an intricately designed and constantly changing system. Not just a river, the Rio Grande stretches all the way from Colorado before intersecting with the US-Mexico Border in southern Texas - a point where the powerful forces of nature now merge with a clearly-defined political boundary. The outcome of this is a unique ecological niche, which may often go unnoticed despite its distinctiveness.

Texas is famous for its farms and ranches, and the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas was once an agricultural hub. However, urbanization and the depletion of water …

Perception Of Alumni Of The Department Of Agriculture At Stephen F. Austin State University, Sherifat Rufai

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

University alumni surveys have served various purposes since they were introduced in the 1930s in the United States. The Department of Agriculture at Stephen F. Austin State University (SFASU) aimed to evaluate alumni perceptions between the Fall of 2010 and the Spring of 2022 to provide an opportunity to examine the relationship between degree fields and occupations and the agriculture curriculum, salaries, and demographic data for college graduates. This study's web-based survey was designed to include closed-ended and open-ended questions to collect individual opinions using Qualtrics Survey Software. The survey materials were made available on the alumni's social media accounts. …

The Gardens Nearby: A Narrative Podcast Exploring Soil Contamination And Community Gardening In Burlington, Vt, April Mcilwaine

Food Systems Master's Project Reports

The city of Burlington, Vermont (Burlington) is home to the Burlington Area Community Gardens (BACG), a program of the Burlington Parks and Recreation Department. This program has a 50-year legacy in the Burlington community and today comprises 14 garden sites that serve over 1,400 people. Within the framework of food sovereignty, community gardens are valuable, multi-functional spaces that positively benefit residents and neighborhoods alike. However, planting gardens in reclaimed urban spaces may come with food safety concerns. Like other cities that have an industrial heritage, some of Burlington’s urban areas may have soils with high levels of toxic heavy metals …

The Role Affiliation Membership Plays In An Ffa Chapter: A Qualitative View From Kentucky, Jacob Falwell, Kristie B. Guffey

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

Research exists to demonstrate the benefits of FFA membership and the three-circle model of agriculture education. FFA membership had shown minimal growth in the 20 years following the rebranding. The innovative approach of affiliation membership has ushered in a steady growth of FFA membership, but not all chapters are participating in affiliation. FFA membership is provided to every student who is enrolled in agriculture education classes with affiliation, and the dues collection process is eliminated. This study investigated the view of affiliation membership in Kentucky High School Agriculture Education programs by researching the enrollment, involvement, and educational outcomes of affiliated …

Women Pursuing An Agricultural Systems Technology Degree, Tanya Milam

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

This phenomenological research study examined the factors influencing women to pursue an Agricultural Systems Technology (AST) degree and their self-efficacy in that field of study. Two research questions guided this study and data was analyzed from interviewing women enrolled in an Agricultural Systems Technology (AST) program at a mid-western university. The resulting four categories of Agricultural Experiences, Aptitude, Support, and Motivation were broken down into themes. The results were also applied to the theoretical framework of self-efficacy associated with career choice theories. Limitations of scope and generalizability indicate that further investigation of this topic is highly recommended.

Keywords: …

The Diffusion And Adoption Of Precision Agricultural Technologies And Practices In Six Selected Southern States, Patterson Perez Hilaire

Theses and Dissertations

Precision agriculture continues to be prevalent within row-crop production. The purpose of this study was to investigate the adoption status of precision agricultural practices among selected row-crop (soybean, wheat, corn, cotton, peanuts, and rice) producers in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Seventy-four percent of row-crop producers surveyed in this study had adopted precision agricultural practices in their farming operations. Eighty-three percent of respondents indicated they were using automated GPS technology such as autosteer, 66% were using manual guidance such as lightbar, 63% variable-rate prescription map, and 34% auto-sprayer boom section or nozzle control. The primary source for receiving …

Present Limitations And Future Projections: Food Insecurity, Housing Insecurity And Optimism Among College Students, Amber Obermaier

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Within the last decade, research has identified wide-ranging disparities in access to basic needs among university students. These differences, such as a lack of adequate food and housing during university, provide a negative environmental experience with potential to limit one’s optimism or hope for the future. This research explores how basic needs insecurity and social vulnerabilities among college students are related to subjective assessments of their prospects for the future. The present study utilizes survey data from a random sample of college students (n=300) enrolled at an urban university in the Midwest region of the United States of America. Logistic …

Higher Education And Food Access: A Case Study Of Food Access Initiatives And Their Community Impact, Rebecca Wheaton

All Master's Theses

Food security issues are being prioritized across college campuses and among student communities in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. While basic needs services are typically available on campuses, there is still a discrepancy between availability and accessibility. Ellensburg, Washington, has vulnerable food-insecure populations, including Central Washington University (CWU) students, whose access issues involve not only social, cultural, and political dimensions, but also practical considerations like transportation, distance to grocery stores, and affordability of food resources. A central concern of this research is to understand food as constitutive of different forms of symbolic, cultural, and economic capital following Bourdieu’s Theory …

Career Development And Employability Skill Integration Within The Equine Science And Management Undergraduate Program At The University Of Kentucky, Savannah Faye Robin

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Leadership Studies

College graduates need to be equipped with career and employability skills that are necessary to be meaningfully and gainfully employed in their future. These skills consist of self-management, career-management, essential-employability, and discipline-specific skills. More responsibility is being placed on college and university academic programs to ensure that students are graduating with these skills when they enter the workforce. However, students are growing less likely to participate in out of course career development activities and resources. Integrating these skills into program curriculum can be an effective way to ensure that all students have the ability to develop these necessary skills.

While …

Agroecology Curriculum Proposal, Emily Kuhn

Pitzer Senior Theses

The purpose of this research is to establish the viability of an Agroecology major at Pitzer College. I begin by problematizing Industrial Agriculture and making a case for Pitzer College to become a higher education leader in the global paradigm shift towards socially and ecologically just food systems. The proposed curriculum compiles pre-existing classes, objectives expanded from the EA field group, and an internship component embedded at five local land-based learning partner sites. I conducted a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis of the Environmental Analysis field group as a potential host for the agroecology track, including study abroad …

Identifying Effective Teaching And Recruitment Strategies Used By Efnep In Reaching Limited Income Audiences In The United States, Alexandria Mcleod

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The two articles presented in this thesis used a researcher-developed literature-based survey instrument to collect data on the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) in the United States. Data was collected on methods of teaching, communication technologies used, recruitment strategies, barriers to attending classes, and program assistant demographic data. There were 803 program assistants working during the 2018-2019 program year. There were 346 program assistants who completed the 35-question survey instrument during data collection.

The first article focused on identifying effective teaching strategies used to increase program engagement by collecting data on program characteristics, methods of teaching, and educational …

Community Gardening & Nutrition Education Event To Improve Healthy Living, Silvia Yunuen Torres Ochoa

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Catholic Charities (CC) is a non-governmental organization that is a part of a network of charities that focuses on immediate disaster response and helps to stabilize impacted communities. Their humanitarian-aid includes housing assistance, funding for health care services, disaster relief and distribution of food. The macro-level problem is too many people in Monterey County are at risk of diabetes. The micro-level problem is that residents of Eden Housing have a higher risk of not eating healthy foods. This project serves Eden Housing residents in Seaside where a gardening and nutrition education event was held to assist residents to plant vegetables …

The One – Way (Agri)Cultural Mirror: A Case Study Of How Young Agriculturalists Understand And Experience Culture, Janiece M. Pigg

LSU Master's Theses

As the global economy continues to transform how society operates, cultural competence has become a buzzword in education, professional development, research, government, and healthcare (Gay, 1994; Gallus et al., 2014). Cross et al. (1989) developed the most accepted definition of cultural competence: “a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency, or among professionals and enable that system, agency, or those professionals to work effectively in cross-cultural situations” (p. 13).

Despite this, little to no research has been devoted to understanding cultural competence in agriculture. Thus, a need emerged to describe the cultural competence …

Factors That Influence Entrepreneurship And Digital Talent In The Rural Heartland: Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, And Arkansas, Chett Daniel

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

The current state of many rural communities demands new, more relevant economic development strategies. Traditional models of rural economic development often rely on farming, natural resource extraction, and industrial type jobs that rely on lower cost labor usually focused on manufacturing of product or food. Farm jobs declined decades ago. Offshoring, and more recently automation is rapidly reducing the number of jobs available in rural areas. Jobs and economic vitality are critical to sustaining or growing communities. While traditional methods of industry attraction are still viable strategies to spur economic activity, rural areas must develop concurrent economic strategies driven by …

Assessing Effectiveness Of The Monterey County Agricultural Commissioner Safety Procedures Education, Ernesto Verduzco

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Safe Ag Safe Schools (SASS) is a local pesticide reform organization with members at the state and local levels aiming towards sustainable agricultural practices. SASS focuses on serving agriculturally working families and community members who reside near agricultural areas. The problem addressed by the capstone is that too many marginalized, low-income communities are facing environmental injustices produced by large corporation’s methods of generating revenue. These injustices include high risk of pesticide exposure due to inadequate training and access to equipment. The project focused on assessing farm workers’ knowledge regarding pesticide safety and decontamination procedures. The Office of the Monterey Agricultural …

4-H Youth Leaders: Acquisition Of Leadership Skills Based On Perceived Influence, Cathy Bartlett Gray Ma

All Student Scholarship

This study focuses on youth perceptions of influence on others and leadership skills they may seek to acquire, particularly within the Maine 4-H program. Understanding the relationship between the youth perception of leadership influence and the skills they seek to acquire will enable 4-H club leaders and adult mentors to better facilitate acquisition of leadership skills. This study gains understanding from the perspective of current teen leaders in the Maine 4-H program through the use of personal interviews with active teen leaders. Findings indicate that Maine 4-H Teen Leaders do not necessarily recognize the influence they have with their peers …

A Case For The Congo: How Can Education And Agriculture Lead To Economic Development?, Arthur Kilongo

Senior Projects Spring 2020

Since its independence from Belgium in 1960 until this point in time, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has more than often experienced violence and political instability that have prevented the creation of a stable economy and functional political system. As a result, quality education and high paying jobs are scarce in the DR Congo today, resulting in poverty to the extent where many people in the country live on less than $1.90 per day. According to the International Labour Organization, as many as 68.7% of Congolese worked in agriculture in 2019. This paper investigates how education and training can …

Rezistance: Diné Grassroots Organization And Modes Of Activism, Eric Robert Dougherty

Senior Projects Spring 2020

This ethnography looks at themes of Indigeneity and activism as it exists in the everyday realities of young people living in or around the Navajo reservation in the southwest United States. Through work-related projects of hogan construction, land reclamation, watershed management, and language restoration Navajo youth are given opportunities to take control of their present circumstances and imagine a different future for themselves and their families. Besides work, youth and activism are constituted through other mediums and spaces that allow people to express who they are, what they care about, and why these things are important to them. The consistent …

Reaching Zero Waste: Determining The Student Perspective On Campus Food Waste., Cassie Anne Parkins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Food waste is an ongoing problem in the complex global food system. College campuses are in a unique position to address food waste through reducing it in their own food systems and by encouraging students to develop behaviors to reduce and divert waste from landfills. In this thesis project I seek to understand how students consider food waste and their attitudes and ideas about reducing it. To this end, I observed student behaviors and waste in University of Louisville’s all-you-care-to-eat dining hall and weighed plate waste there. I conducted informational interviews with University and Aramark employees, along with semi-structured interviews …

Radical Social Ecology As Deep Pragmatism: A Call To The Abolition Of Systemic Dissonance And The Minimization Of Entropic Chaos, Arielle Brender

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper aims to shed light on the dissonance caused by the superimposition of Dominant Human Systems on Natural Systems. I highlight the synthetic nature of Dominant Human Systems as egoic and linguistic phenomenon manufactured by a mere portion of the human population, which renders them inherently oppressive unto peoples and landscapes whose wisdom were barred from the design process. In pursuing a radical pragmatic approach to mending the simultaneous oppression and destruction of the human being and the earth, I highlight the necessity of minimizing entropic chaos caused by excess energy expenditure, an essential feature of systems that aim …

Egg Awareness, Hailee J. French

Agricultural Education and Communication

In 2008, Proposition 2 passed, forcing all egg producers in California to provide more room inside of cages to their laying hens. The Humane Society of the United States [HSUS] initiated this battle and won but, less than a decade later decided that still wasn’t enough room for the birds. HSUS is now pushing to have a new measure on the ballot in November 2018 forcing all egg producers in California to produce their eggs cage free.

This project will survey the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo campus to gauge the campus’s understanding of egg production in California. …

Sustainability At Sit: A Look At The Past, A Plan For The Future, Taliesin Haugh

Capstone Collection

Climate change threatens our world and way of life. Intelligent development and investment could mitigate the worst threats of climate change, while simultaneously providing continuous growth for the global economy. The New Climate Economy proposes efforts to combat this ecological collapse that would result in $30 trillion in new annual economic growth by 2030. Stockholm Resilience Center agrees, giving a framework based on global ecological systems that calls for five critical tasks that can bring growth and stability: Renewable energy

Sustainable local food production

New development models, based on what has worked globally

Reduction of wealth inequity

Education, health, and …

Giving A Voice To The Powerless: Participatory Monitoring & Evaluation As A Tool For Inclusive Development Through Microfinance, Evan T. Burke

Capstone Collection

The greatest experts on the situation of the marginalized peoples of the world are the marginalized communities themselves. This paper explores how participatory monitoring & evaluation can be a powerful tool for giving voices to marginalized communities, ensuring that the voices of beneficiaries and local stakeholders are heard and inform sustainable project design. It analyzes a participatory monitoring and evaluation methodology implemented for women’s credit cooperatives in Gujarat, India by the Human Development & Research Centre, and examines lessons to be learned to design evaluations facilitating inclusive development.

Strategies for the monitoring and evaluation of microfinance have evolved along with …

School Gardens: Cultivating A Child’S Nutritional Habits, Environmental Knowledge, And Sustainability Practices, Jeffrey Meltzer

Honors Theses

School gardens have existed since the late nineteenth century and today are becoming increasingly popular in many parts of the world, including where I studied in Maine and Australia (AUS). Multiple organizations support school gardens in Maine, including the Maine School Garden Network, which has over 125 registered school gardens. In AUS, the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation primarily supports the school garden movement and has over 800 registered school gardens. While many researchers have studied school gardens, few have compared two countries, focused on environmental sustainability, or investigated Maine in particular. This thesis combines information from literature reviews, and …

Active Development Of Tacit Knowledge: Adtk In A World Without Farmers, Roger E. Garrett Jr.

Capstone Collection

Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) and extensions such as Transformative Learning Theory offer significant potential for skill development later in life – reskilling. Despite wide acceptance and deployment, practitioners are still obliged to design their own methods and activities in order to implement these theories. This paper introduces a novel curricular model, Active Development of Tacit Knowledge (ADTK). Educators can use ADTK to effectively implement and scale ELT. Agricultural Education, specifically the training of new farmers, is used as a sample context to demonstrate ADTK. In new-farmer education, it is necessary to compress the educational cycles of dozens of years of …

Motivating Factors For Young Adults In The Brattleboro Area To Start In Organic Agriculture For Their Career, Tomokazu Utsugi

Capstone Collection

Despite a worldwide push for the conversion of conventional agriculture to organic agriculture, organic farming itself is not a very popular vocational choice for young people. Brattleboro, one of the towns in Vermont, is no exception. Although several local organizations are promoting local agriculture and food security, in reality, not many young people in Brattleboro want to choose organic agriculture as their career.

With a total of 17 in-depth qualitative interviews with young adults in the Brattleboro area, this inquiry sought to identify a range of factors that would motivate them to choose organic agriculture as their career. The results …

The Meeting School: An Alternative Mode Of Education, Hallel Parsons

Capstone Collection

What role do spirituality, community, and farming play in contemporary US education? As a farm and faculty intern at a small, private, Quaker boarding high school in rural NH I gained an interesting perspective on this subject. Using Robert G. Hanvey’s working thesis: An Attainable Global Perspective: Education for a Global Perspective as a standard by which to measure my experience at The Meeting School, I explore the implications of an education founded upon the Quaker values of simplicity, peace, integrity, community, and equality (SPICE), within the context of an intentional community committed to organic farming as a means to …

Male Farmers Coping With Loss Of Spouse: Impacts On Farming Operation And Family Life, Daniel O. Wilson

Theses and Dissertations--Community & Leadership Development

Losing a spouse is as devastating an experience anyone will ever deal with in his or her life. Research, however, shows that men have a harder and longer time coping with the loss of a spouse than women. When the widower’s profession is farming, there are no resources to specifically help that individual with their loss. The purpose of this research was to gain insight into the lives of widowed farmers with particular focus on transitions in their farming operation and their family life. Through their stories, we learn what is happening before the loss of the female spouse on …

Perceptions Of Agriculture Teachers Toward Including Students With Disabilities, Monica D. Giffing

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The inclusion of students with special needs in regular education classrooms has been required by federal law for more than three decades. However, much of the responsibility for successful accommodation of students with disabilities rests upon the shoulders of teachers. Previous research has indicated that successful inclusion of students with special needs is strongly influenced by the attitude of teachers involved. In this study, all secondary agriculture teachers in Utah were surveyed to determine their attitudes and perceptions related to their willingness and ability to include students with special needs in their classrooms and laboratories. Selected personal and professional characteristics …

Migration Of University Of Maine 2002 Graduates, Ewa Jadwiga Kleczyk

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the context of today's tight labor market and increasing demand for highly skilled workers, Maine is considering how to attract and retain college graduates in the state. The educational system and economic opportunities such as the job market, wage levels, and taxes, as well as other factors impacting the migration trends of college graduates are evaluated. Understanding the patterns of educated people's relocation decisions, and the reasons influencing them, are concerns not just of government officials. Students with bachelor and advanced degrees are thought to be an asset to the community and the state since they add to the …