ASHS 2024 Conference

The USDA NIFA has funds for Extension that support more complex projects than typical programs. Since 2021, a multi-county Extension team has developed a UF/IFAS Bookstore publication titled “Basics of Landscaping in Florida, Conceptos Básicos de Paisajismo en Florida”. This pocket-sized, waterproof guide enables multi-lingual landscape teams to effectively communicate essential landscaping best management practices (BMPs). These BMPs promote long term landscape resilience while reducing reliance on chemical inputs. The environmental horticulture industry in Florida is worth over $10 billion annually, employs over 100,000 people, of which, 33% identify as Hispanic/Latino origin. Most horticulture jobs are focused on landscaping for aesthetics which leads to reactionary pest management focused on quick chemical solutions rather than long term economic, environmental, and social sustainability. In Florida, the use of pesticides and fertilizers requires training and professional licensure, yet chemical control and fertilization represent only a fraction of landscape integrated pest management (IPM). Cultural IPM, on the other hand, offers a key advantage: it allows for effective pest management while significantly reducing pesticide use. However, not all industry professionals require a license to perform their duties, and thus, many lack adequate training on the basics of IPM and BMPs. While quality training programs do exist, they may be cost prohibitive or too advanced for landscape professionals early in their careers or for employees performing basic tasks that fall within cultural IPM foundations. Research shows that people typically add more information and overlook subtractive approaches that may actually improve outcomes (Adams, et. al, 2021). The approach to teaching landscape basics is rooted in age old wisdom, from Occam’s Razor, Einstein’s famous quote, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler”, and Lockheed Martin’s “Keep It Simple, Stupid (KISS)” methodologies. Thus, a more basic bilingual training on landscape best practices and IPM was needed and developed as part of the USDA, NIFA Award No. 2021-70006-35560. This booklet uses heuristic techniques designed to effectively communicate fundamental cultural IPM principles to a broader audience in English and Spanish, avoiding intricate and technical facets of horticulture. The team will disseminate booklets to clientele in 2024 and subsequently offer them for sale in the UF/IFAS Bookstore. This presentation will focus on simplifying horticultural science educational technologies, making them accessible, actionable, and agreeable for Floridians working with landscapes. Funding options, considerations, and experiences developing bilingual training materials will also be shared.

Learning objectives are put into place to measure student conceptualization in classroom activities. However, how effective are these learning outcomes in individualized student activities? Our research will explore how well students expressed learning concepts through in-class floral design construction. The target group is the students in HS 275 Floral Design. To study student understanding, we analyzed each week’s learning objectives by evaluating each student's submitted floral design project photograph. This was done through analyzing our review comments and student reflections of their final project. We will discuss the results of our study about applying teaching strategies that promote conceptualization that can potentially be applied broadly in higher education courses.

TPSS 654 Communications in the Sciences is a required one-credit graduate course in the Tropical Plant

Peer-to-peer engagement is an impactful way to enrich student learning and the teaching experience, especially in an asynchronous course. Varied online discussion platforms are more readily available to increase engagement, participation, and student learning. However, more information is needed to evaluate whether these discussion platforms enhance engaged learning. This study compares the use of online discussion platforms Packback and Yellowdig, used in sequential years for HS 205 (Sec. 601): Home Food Production - quantifying students' recorded level of participation, engagement with their classmates, and effort put into student posts. In the spring of 2022, Packback was evaluated as an effective class discussion tool for HS 205 (Sec. 601): Home Food Production. Students used Packback as the course discussion forum tool. Each week, they were given instructor-led lead discussion prompts during scheduled weeks and asked to respond to two of their peers. Packback tracked student participation each week and gave students a “curiosity” score. This curiosity score algorithm assessed the effort put into each student’s post. The Packback discussion group had lower full student participation, peer-to-peer engagement, and curiosity/effort scores. In the first week, most students fully participated. But as weeks progressed, the effort put into discussion posting and engagement significantly declined – as low as 65% participation. Beyond answering the discussion prompt, students did not develop their line of inquiry, and engagement was modest – most weeks, students did not fully participate, and the average curiosity score was 66% (the highest participation was 81 and the lowest 40). In the spring of 2023, Yellowdig was used as a digital tool to help create more vibrant, connected learning communities and give students the agency to discuss course topics that are important to them. Using Yellowdig, evidence showed that students became more active participants in the learning process, often exceeding the minimal participation requirement, and played a critical role in constructing knowledge. Crafted course topics provided course relevance and helped students talk about subjects related to the course, but no longer relied on instructor prompts for their discussions each week. With Yellowdig, students in this course performed above average in the number of student connections, the number of discussion posts, the number of reactions and responses given to discussion posts, the total word count average, and the number of multimedia shared (i.e.pictures, videos, weblinks). Furthermore, several students echoed their value of Yellowdig in their end -of-year evaluations.

Kansas State University formally began working in Urban Food Systems (UFS) with the launch of an UFS specialization in the Horticulture graduate program in 2011. In 2013 it expanded to the KSU-Olathe campus in order to be closer partners and other stakeholders in the Kansas City area. This program provides interdisciplinary training that focuses on sustainable urban food production, local food accessibility, food systems project management, grant writing, public and farmer education, and safe food production in an urban environment. Students gain a foundation in horticultural science while studying how the urban food system impacts social and economic development. There are a number of working urban agriculture professionals that do not have formal education or accreditation in these important topics. Therefore, the MS specialization has a thesis and a professional track (report) option that is intended for working professionals. Based on stakeholder feedback and marketing study performed by KSU, it became clear that there is a strong need for this type of education nationally and for working professionals. An online graduate certificate in urban food systems in January 2022 to address this need. The certificate consist of 6 required credits and 6 elective credits from approved courses in plant and agricultural science, leadership and management, sociology, economics and health. Fall 2023, the professional track MS is available 100% online. Graduates of the program are well prepared to work as director/program managers in not-for-profit organizations, city governments, and extension programs in urban districts, facilitating community gardens, urban farming, farmers’ markets, and farm-to-school programs. Details about the curriculum of the MS specialization and the interdisciplinary graduate certificate will be presented. As urban food systems continue to expand across the US and internationally, it will take a diverse group of professionals to address the complex issues that are relevant to this growing discipline.

Higher education institutions play a crucial role in shaping the future by preparing students to address global sustainability challenges. As we incorporate sustainability principles into teaching and research, faculty members are increasingly adopting an interdisciplinary approach. In particular, colleges of agriculture recognize the urgency of addressing soil degradation, climate change, and land management practices—the very threats that jeopardize global sustainability. However, teaching sustainability is no simple task. Students often grapple with the complexities of land degradation, soil health issues, and the impact of global warming on agriculture. Balancing the need to cover sustainability comprehensively while empowering students to find solutions can be challenging. In response to this challenge, a collaborative effort emerged across five different agriculture college courses. These courses leveraged experiential-learning projects focused on soil quality indicators and climate change mitigation as tools for teaching sustainability concepts. Despite varying levels (ranging from 300 to 400), these courses intentionally shared common components and included research projects, shared readings and reflections, student presentations and a symposium for research competition. The study analyzed over 40 research projects on soil quality and 85 student reflections. The results revealed that students not only acquired a deeper understanding of soil quality variations but also recognized how changes in soil health serve as indicators of land degradation or improvement. Moreover, they appreciated the vital role soil health plays in mitigating climate change. This collaborative approach demonstrates the effectiveness of experiential learning in teaching sustainability. By integrating real-world challenges and fostering interdisciplinary connections, higher education institutions can empower students to become informed stewards of our planet’s future.

Universities are adapting their teaching methods to progress with changes in technology. With these shifts in teaching, researchers are interested in which methods are best for certain applications. In the agriculture/horticulture realm, there are many studies describing the effects of online vs traditional in-class learning. Most of these studies focus on plant identification and generic species knowledge of plants. This study's purpose is to determine the efficacy of online vs traditional hands-on learning with eight types of landscaping equipment. The study was completed in the fall semester of 2023 at Kansas State University during the Sustainable Landscape Maintenance class. The class was randomly divided into two groups and exposed to one of two teaching methods (hands-on and online videos). Eight commonly used landscape equipment were taught to the students: power hedge trimmer, rotary push mower, de-thatcher, over seeder, ride-on zero-turn mower, sod cutter, string trimmer, and core aerifier). Both the videos and the in-person teaching covered proper operation and safety for each piece of equipment. One group was given in-person, hands- on learning the first week, while the other group watched online videos over the same four pieces of equipment. The following week, the groups switched teaching method delivery and learned the other four pieces of equipment. The students were given a pre- and post-test to assess their comprehension of the equipment. They also participated in a survey after the experiment to show prior experience on the equipment and comfortability after the labs. Results showed that students learn landscape equipment better in person through hands- on learning, rather than relying only on videos. The survey also showed students prefer hands-on demonstrations to become more comfortable operating these pieces of equipment.

Concepts of plant water use, photosynthesis, and respiration have historically been challenging for undergraduates in introductory horticulture courses. To increase student understanding of these concepts, we conducted a study in a principles of horticultural science course with two lab sections and a total enrollment of 51 students. After traditional lectures of these plant physiological processes concluded, we used a flipped classroom approach with the learners as teachers to increase student learning. Each lab section was divided into six groups, with 12 groups in total. Groups were assigned one of the three topics and presented their topic to two other groups of students. Five knowledge-based questions on each physiological process, 15 questions total, were included on a pre-test prior to hearing lectures. The same 15 questions were given on a post-test following the lectures, but prior to the student presentations. Those 15 questions were also included on the unit exam following the presentations. No significant differences were found between pre-test and exam scores when evaluated for specific topics students presented. However, an 80% overall score increase from the pre-test to the unit exam was reported. This correlates with student responses to a post-survey in which 80% of the students indicated they understood the other physiological processes better after hearing the group presentations. Our results show that a flipped classroom approach of students teaching students can be effective at increasing student understanding of difficult horticultural concepts.

The undergraduate core curriculum is an opportunity introduce students from diverse majors to topics in agriculture. Agricultural Biotechnology is an interdisciplinary undergraduate course at Delaware Valley University which combines the disciplines of Plant and Animal Science. It has run every spring semester since 2020, with enrollment made up of students from different majors. The course was recently approved as a core capstone course, an upper-level course intended to assess the university’s core curriculum, and it and was run as a core capstone course for the first time in 2024. The objectives of this project were to: 1) create two final course projects including a poster and case study designed to assess the core curriculum outcomes and 2) to provide students with the opportunity to develop their skills in public education and outreach. A final poster project was incorporated into the course in which students were instructed to develop a new Biotech trait in any plant or animal species. The poster project needed to address core curriculum outcomes such as global contexts, using relevant information, quantitative methods, appropriate technology, and required professional communication. The second case study project was used to assess multicultural competency. The posters were on display at events for both the campus community and the outside public. Student feedback was collected via pre-and post-tests and surveys.