This book responds to the widespread recognition among experts that our educational system needs to change in order to provide the skills and knowledge necessary to ensure the future vitality of U.S. agriculture. Understanding Agriculture focuses on agricultural literacy (education about agriculture) and vocational agricultural education (education in agriculture). The section on agricultural literacy addresses the teaching of science through agriculture, teacher education and training, model educational programs, community support, and agricultural career exploration programs. Vocational agricultural education is examined in terms of program enrollment, availability and content, supervised occupational experiences, the Future Farmers of America program, and teacher education and supply.

This book fills a void in the literature around how urban agricultural education can be used to create opportunities to educate youth and citizens who live in urban areas about growing food. To date, very little has been written about program design and the impact of such experiences on learning outcomes. In fact, most of the journal articles and research to date has focused on access, contextual factors, sustainability, relevance of urban agricultural education, and the intersection of science of agriculture. This book will cover such topics as how urban youth learn science while engaged in urban agriculture programs, how such programs support youth in becoming interested about healthy eating and science more generally, and how to design urban agriculture programs in support of STEM education. The chapters in this book are written by educational researchers and each chapter has been reviewed by researchers and practitioners.

Includes universities, colleges at the 4-year and 2-year or community and junior college levels, technical institutes, and occupationally-oriented vocational schools in the United States and its outlying areas.

During the next ten years, colleges of agriculture will be challenged to transform their role in higher education and their relationship to the evolving global food and agricultural enterprise. If successful, agriculture colleges will emerge as an important venue for scholars and stakeholders to address some of the most complex and urgent problems facing society. Such a transformation could reestablish and sustain the historical position of the college of agriculture as a cornerstone institution in academe, but for that to occur, a rapid and concerted effort by our higher education system is needed to shape their academic focus around the reality of issues that define the world's systems of food and agriculture and to refashion the way in which they foster knowledge of those complex systems in their students. Although there is no single approach to transforming agricultural education, a commitment to change is imperative.