Articles
THE ART OF TEACHING SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES IN HORTICULTURE AND AGRICULTURE
Advances in genetics, physiology, nutrition disease control and soil science have led to huge increases in crop production during the last 50 years.
However the process of change continues.
Public opinion demands that the agricultural industry becomes increasingly more environmentally sensitive, in which itself leads to technological demands.
The increasingly technological nature of agriculture has been associated with a greater science input into the teaching of the subject.
This has not always been successful.
The responsibility for the bad image of science teaching in practically related subjects must be borne largely by those that teach it.
Often such individuals are scientists, or research scientists that present their subject in a form that is unintelligible to those being taught.
The solution to this difficulty is to improve the nature of the science being taught, rather than to remove it from the curriculum.
The aim of science teaching at diploma and higher diploma level should be to provide the principles from which the information being taught is derived.
Unless this is done, then the students that are produced face the danger of being unable to adapt in farming environments of the future.