Name
Future of Our Food: Arts-Based Analysis of Electronic Field Trip Impacts on Sustainable Agriculture Content Knowledge
Date & Time
Tuesday, June 3, 2025, 4:00 PM - 4:15 PM
Jamie Loizzo
Description

Electronic field trips (EFTs) can connect youth vicariously through live webcasts with agricultural environments, sustainable practices, and land grant university experts. Prior research has shown EFTs can positively impact youths’ interest in science topics and featured careers. However, little is known about how these interactive instructional interventions might influence learners’ sense of place and content knowledge. The Streaming Science Project at the University of Florida offered a faculty and graduate student-produced EFT to middle school students from the Horticultural Sciences Department’s Teaching Garden in Spring 2022. The EFT emphasized sustainable farming practices, including vertical strawberry production, grafting, and cover crops. Our research questions included: 1) How did the EFT impact youths’ conceptual maps of sustainable agriculture as compared to the USDA’s definition of sustainable agriculture? and 2) How did the EFT impact youths’ visual conceptualizations of a sustainable garden? We will present the EFT design, objectives, and research results. A middle school class in a rural public Florida school completed post-concept maps (n = 33) that instructed learners to think of up to ten key terms related to sustainable agriculture. Students also completed post-drawings of a sustainable garden (n = 29). We qualitatively coded, tallied for frequencies, and compared the student data and text transcript from the EFT program to the USDA’s definition of the term sustainable agriculture. Results showed youths’ sustainable agriculture concept maps predominantly included the USDA terms natural (72.7%) and renewable (45.5%). Their drawings mostly featured garden beds (62.1%), trees (58.6%), flowers (34.5%), and water (34.5%). Other common terms not in the USDA definition (but discussed in the EFT) that appeared included prevent erosion (72.7%) and biodiversity (69.7%). Results also showed the EFT content aligned with the USDA's definition of sustainable agriculture in terms of enhancing environmental quality, efficient resource use, biological cycles, and economic viability.

Location Name
Turner Valley
Full Address
The Westin Edmonton
10135 100 St NW
Edmonton AB T5J 0N7
Canada
Session Type
Oral Presentation
Presentation Topic(s)
Scholarship
Presentation Track(s)
Tuesday 2
Schedule Block
Block 1