Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Testing Predictions Used To Build An Agrivoltaics Installation On A Small-Scale Educational Model, Katie Kinney, Rebecca Minor, Greg Barron-Gafford

STAR Program Research Presentations

Models are valuable tools for explaining and testing systems. Small-scale models can be especially useful for educational purposes. For models to be useful, they have to accurately depict the larger system that they are describing. A novel man-made system, known as an agrivoltaic structure, is being constructed at Biosphere 2 near Oracle, Arizona. The word agrivoltaic is a combination of agriculture and photovoltaics, or solar farming. My research involved creating a small-scale version of this system for educational purposes. The model of this system tested two predictions: that plants will grow better in the shade of a panel and that …

Exploring Elementary Students’ Agricultural And Scientific Knowledge Using Evidence Centered Design, Molly R. Brandt

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The public is more disconnected from agriculture than ever. Americans are two to four generations removed from the farm, and a majority of Americans, even in rural agricultural states have no direct link to agriculture. As a result, the public lacks the knowledge and appreciation of the food, fuel, and fiber it demands. The National Center for Agricultural Literacy (NCAL) uses National Agricultural Learning Objectives (NALOs) to measure student’s agricultural knowledge. The purpose of this project is to develop assessments aligned with the NALOs and to use results from the assessments to further understand students’ agricultural literacy. This study focuses …

Personal Meaning Mapping As A Tool To Uncover Learning From An Out-Of-Doors Free-Choice Learning Garden, Deborah L. Bailey, John H. Falk

Research in Outdoor Education

Garden-based learning (GBL), a form of outdoor education contextualized and framed within unpredictable and real-world learning environments, is ideally suited to the teaching of science. However, the vast majority of GBL educational research has utilized a cognitive and positivist research paradigm, one that artificially restricts the investigative lens. The goal of the larger project from which this paper was drawn was to develop a better understanding of how youth perceived a garden experience. This paper shares the affordances and constraints of the constructivist framework utilized and the primary measurement tool, Person Meaning Mapping (PMM). Despite some inherent limitations, the PMM …

The Golden Pandemic, Leo Dylan Stevens-Lubin

Senior Projects Spring 2016

The work in my senior show is a representation on how I feel about conventional focusing specifically on corn. The reason that I have chosen corn is because it is one of the most detrimental crops that we are growing in the US. It is grown specifically for livestock feed and ethanol with a minimal fraction for direct human consumption. Corn itself offers minimal nutritional benefits in comparison to most other vegetable crops and the overproduction of corn crops decreases the benefits all the more.

Artwork:

• Woodblock Print Series: The extent of how much land is actually used for corn …