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Workshop shows students the science behind agriculture
By Jennifer Latzke
Science and math courses just aren't keeping the attention of American youth in our fast-paced environment of instant text messaging, fast-food drive-thrus and the Internet. Let's face it, there's not a whole lot that can compete with a video game for the already short attention span of an average teenager.
But, the instructors and staff of the Oklahoma State University Department of Plant and Soil Sciences are giving it their best shot. The department hosted its second annual Science at Work in Agriculture Workshop April 30, at the OSU Agronomy Research Station in Stillwater, Okla.
The focus of the event was to give Oklahoma high school students a better understanding of how science theories and equations they learn in the classroom apply to real-life agricultural production. To do this, the OSU staff had to think outside of the classroom and find ways to give a hands-on opportunity to students.
The workshop was the brainchild of R. Brent Westerman, coordinator of research operations for the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences. The department was seeing a decline in the science and math skills of its incoming freshmen classes. Students were choosing agriculture for a major, but they weren't prepared with the basic math and science courses to handle a university courseload.
"We needed to show students that agriculture isn't just about farming, but that in our world today it uses a lot of technology and science," Westerman said.
It's not a phenomenon that only affects Oklahoma State. In a recent report by the National Science Foundation, a federal agency in Arlington, Va., and published in USA Today, the U.S. is falling behind in the global community in the number of students who major in science and engineering at the post-secondary education level. In 2000, the U.S. only awarded 5.7 science degrees per every 100 24-year-old graduates. Finland, however, had double the number.
The long-term affects are disconcerting. The foundation estimates that science and engineering jobs will have an increasingly high demand for new workers in the next 20 years as the Baby Boomers retire. And, a good many of those jobs are in scientific fields that directly apply to farming and ranching technology. Without new graduates to fill positions in research and engineering, America may lag behind other countries in our technological advancements.
Westerman surmised that to nip the problem of decreasing science and math skills among freshmen in the bud, the department needed to show those high school students with high math and science scores the opportunities that exist for agricultural scientists. Last year's event was the inaugural year and had a very positive response.
"Science and vocational instructors said that the event was helpful to them in showing their students how to apply the equations and theories to practical everyday use," Westerman said. "This is a way to show students what opportunities we offer at OSU."
"We can bring these young people here and use this event to familiarize them with the curriculum at OSU in plant and soil sciences," said Eric Wehrenberg, communications coordinator for the event. It is also a way for OSU staff and instructors to determine what topics the future curriculum should cover.
The feedback from students who attended last year's workshop asked for more hands-on experiences. So, the department complied.
This year, about 250 students from about 26 schools across Oklahoma were able to watch a controlled burn on simulated pasture conditions, calibrate spraying rates, breed Wheat varieties, and more. They were accompanied by their science and math teachers, their FFA advisors and vocational agriculture instructors. Most students were from rural school districts, and those who weren't were at least familiar with agriculture in Oklahoma, Wehrenberg said.
"They know the traditional aspects of farming," he said. "But, here we'll teach them about the cutting edge technology and innovations that may be able to motivate them into an agricultural college major and a career in agriculture."
Dale Glazier, the agricultural instructor for Lomega High School, Lomega, Okla., brought a group of 18 sophomores and juniors to the workshop. He estimated that of his students, 85 percent live on a farm and almost all are, at most, one generation removed from production agriculture.
"We have a lot who are interested in the agricultural field and a few are looking at attending OSU in the future," Glazier said. "They are also looking at agriculture as a career and this day can give them some ideas for the opportunities out there.
"It also helps reinforce the lessons we teach in the classroom," Glazier said. "I get a lot of questions of 'How do I use this equation in real-life?' and this shows them how it applies." Glazier said in the future he'd like for his school's science and math instructors to come along as well.
"It gives a different perspective than what our students are used to seeing," he added.
Students had a choice of one of two tours--Black or Orange. Some of the stops included learning about controlling water erosion on fields; seed quality and germination; fertilizer affects on wheat; and using global positioning equipment in the field.
One of the more popular stops was a demonstration of prescribed burning in the driveway of the agronomy farm. Because of colder and wetter conditions, the staff decided to simulate an Oklahoma pasture by spreading prairie hay on the asphalt driveway and adding a few red cedar trees on top of the pile. The students, observing from a safe distance, then timed the burn from start to finish and calculated flame height and total energy given off by the fire. The demonstration taught them that fire is actually beneficial to the environment and one of nature's tools to controlling brush and giving off nutrients.
Another tour featured OSU's GreenSeeker technology. Students used hand-held optical sensors to determine precise points in a Wheat field for optimum nutrient application. They learned how to apply those points to the GreenSeeker spray coupe's technology so that nitrogen can be applied in a field using a grid of calibrations. The students were equally impressed with the speed of the spray coupe's application, as well as the cost effectiveness of the technology.
Along the way, students were also teaching the instructors.
"We've had kids asking questions that the graduate students, who are helping lead tours, cannot answer right away," Wehrenberg said. But, it's that exchange of ideas and knowledge that make both the students and instructors excited about the workshop. The tours were expanded this year to work with the staff and instructors of the biological systems and agricultural engineering department as well as others on OSU's campus. In the future, the organizers would like to have more agricultural departments involved in the event, so that students get a more well-rounded idea of the wide range of scientific opportunities available to them.
Lunch was provided on the grounds by the various sponsors and Stuart Kennedy, president and chief executive officer of Kennedy Foods spoke to the youth about their future choices. Kennedy, who received his bachelor's and master's degrees from OSU, is the inventor of PB Slices, which are individually wrapped slices of peanut butter for sandwiches and other food dishes. In the world of convenience foods, Kennedy's idea was a major innovation, and now has applications for the pet food industry as well.
Kennedy reminded the students that OSU is trying to figure out ways of using Oklahoma's natural resources to meet the needs of America's citizens, and that they had just a taste of those research projects today.
"You've got to think outside the jar," he said, in reference to his own work on PB Slices. He stressed that the combined team effort of Oklahoma farmers, OSU researchers and average people with average ideas are what may be the difference in success and failures of the innovations of tomorrow. He also encouraged the youth to expand their knowledge and to take every opportunity for personal growth.
"The only difference between a two-inch goldfish in a fish bowl and a 6-pound Koi in a pond is the size of its environment," Kennedy said. "Expand your environment and there's no limit to how big you'll grow."
For Glazier's students, the day was about expanding their horizons past the doors of their smaller rural Oklahoma school. One student, Sheri Yost, a junior at Lomega High School and the daughter of Mike and Diane Yost, is active in her school's FFA, raises Wheat for competition and was particularly interested in the Wheat breeding stop of the tour.
"This day gave me a better idea of what I want to do when I graduate," Yost said. "While I don't know exactly what I want to do for sure yet, I do know I want to stay in agriculture."
And that statement gives the OSU staff hope that science in agriculture can compete against video games in the long run.
Date: 5/20/04
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