Source(s):
Kimberly Bellah (352) 392-0502 ext. 223
Glenn Israel (352) 392-0502 ext. 246
Wendy Warner (352) 392-0502 ext. 223
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — They’ve never known a world without CD players, cell phones, and fax machines. And for many middle-school-age children in America, the farm is a completely alien environment.
Now researchers at the University of Florida are trying to teach sixth- and seventh-grade students to think about agriculture — by asking them to imagine how astronauts would feed themselves on a mission to Mars.
“It’s hard to find a child who isn’t interested in space exploration,” Kimberly Bellah, a graduate assistant in the agricultural education and communication department at UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. “Everyone wants to know what life would be like on a trip to another planet, and what life would be like there. We can use that curiosity to get kids to think about some of the fundamental problems in agriculture — things they need to know, but might not otherwise be interested in.”
Bellah writes instructional material for Space Agriculture in the Classroom, a project that draws on plans for future human missions to the Moon and Mars to teach children about agriculture on Earth. Jointly funded by IFAS, NASA, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the program draws material from the research all three agencies are now doing to explore how crops can be grown in space.
With NASA considering a return to the Moon and a future mission to Mars, researchers are growing increasingly interested in carrying agriculture into space. Spaceborne gardens would provide astronauts with fresh food on a long-term voyage into space, while turning carbon dioxide into oxygen and helping astronauts recycle waste. And many researchers believe astronauts could get more food from a garden than they could from canned food that takes up the same amount of weight and volume on a spacecraft.
UF researchers have long been working on technologies that could answer some of those questions — developing greenhouses that could be used to grow plants on Mars, sending plants on Space Shuttle flights to see how they grow in space, and exposing microbes to the rigors of space flight to see if they can survive.
Space Agriculture in the Classroom draws on that work to introduce students to some of the basic concepts of agriculture: the uses of genetic engineering, the need for fertilizer, the ways foods are packaged, and other topics.
The program provides teachers with two weeks’ worth of lesson plans for classes revolving around space agriculture. The lesson plans are designed for use with “Growing Space,” a glossy, magazine-style publication on space agriculture, aimed at a middle-school audience. Teachers can request a classroom set of the magazine, as well as other teaching materials, through the project’s Web site, www.spaceag.org.
“We wanted a publication students would enjoy reading, with lively text that excites their imagination,” said Bellah. “We also include interviews with astronauts, who explain how a good education in science can lead to a good career — in the space program, in agriculture, or elsewhere.”
During the 2003-2004 school year — its first year in operation — Space Agriculture in the Classroom sent materials to 395 6th- grade teachers in five participating states. Eighty-four percent of teachers responding to a survey on the program reported that they were able to integrate space agriculture lessons into their classes, and more than 90 percent of those teachers reported that the program increased their students’ interest in science.
The program appears to be particularly well received in urban schools and schools with large minority populations, said Glenn Israel, a UF professor of agricultural education and communication, who surveyed the teachers.
That reception is significant, Israel said, because agriculture is often not addressed in classrooms in urban and largely-minority schools.
“Our program is a sister program to Agriculture in the Classroom, a USDA project designed to teach students about how food is produced here on Earth,” Israel said. “That program is a great way to teach urban and suburban students about the ways food is produced — but we’ve found that participation is highest in rural and small-town schools, where the students probably already have some exposure to agriculture.”
The program’s space-exploration focus often sparks interest from teachers who steer clear of lessons focused on agriculture alone, said Wendy Warner, a graduate assistant in UF’s department of agricultural education and communication. Warner has traveled to educators; conferences around the country to pitch the program to middle school teachers.
“The initial response is usually ‘I’m not an agriculture teacher, so I’m not sure I need this,'” Warner said. “But when teachers see that we’re taking a new approach to the subject matter, they’re often willing to give the program a try.”
The program’s organizers plan to expand their reach this year, printing 50,000 copies of the 6th-grade version of “Growing Space” and 50,000 copies of a version aimed at 7th-graders.
“We’ve seen a lot of interest in this material and we expect more, particularly now that NASA is talking about a mission to Mars,” said Bellah. “A child in middle school today knows that, if we go to Mars, he or she could be on that flight. That’s a great way to stimulate interest in science.”
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