TY - JOUR
T1 - Agricultural and environmental education
T2 - a call for meaningful collaboration in a U.S. context
AU - Reilly, Caitlin
AU - Stevenson, Kathryn
AU - Warner, Wendy
AU - Park, Travis
AU - Knollenberg, Whitney
AU - Lawson, Danielle
AU - Brune, Sara
AU - Barbieri, Carla
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported through grant funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
Funding Information:
In addition to working together to identify joint research questions, seeking joint support for our work may offer expansive opportunities benefitting both fields. For instance, funding opportunities may expand when AE and EE communities work together. One notable example is the National Collaborative for Research on Food, Energy, and Water Education project which has received funding through the National Science Foundation and the US Department of Agriculture by emphasizing connections between EE and AE approaches (National Collaborative for Research on Food, Energy, and Water Education n.d.). Additionally, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) has national funding priorities that include climate variability and change, water, and sustainable bioenergy, which can potentially bridge gaps between agricultural and environmental sciences (National Institute of Food and Agriculture n.d.-b). NIFA is a major funding resource that remains underutilized among EE researchers and provides opportunities to engage with agricultural research communities. Collaborations between AE and EE are necessary to address urgent and complex problems and are well-positioned to answer the identified needs of funding resources that remain largely untapped by our respective communities. However, we must revisit academic structures that penalize rather than incentivize collaborative research if we wish to succeed in bridging AE and EE scholarly communities.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Blending agricultural education (AE) and environmental education (EE) frameworks is a promising pathway towards the goals of boosting environmental engagement and support for local agricultural systems among broad public audiences. However, thoughtful and intentional collaboration between researchers is needed to facilitate these outcomes. We feel it is important to collapse existing disciplinary walls between AE and EE to effectively reposition both as critical public goods and address inequitable access to environmental and agricultural knowledge among the next generation. In this paper, we outline the historical context for the silos between U.S.-based AE and EE programmatic and research practice. We then present a new collaborative structure for scholars in both fields to work together to build agricultural and environmental literacy in support of environmentally sustainable, economically robust, and socially responsible agroecosystems. Ultimately, we aim to create structures for broader and more collaborative efforts through which to improve agricultural and environmental literacy for new generations of learners.
AB - Blending agricultural education (AE) and environmental education (EE) frameworks is a promising pathway towards the goals of boosting environmental engagement and support for local agricultural systems among broad public audiences. However, thoughtful and intentional collaboration between researchers is needed to facilitate these outcomes. We feel it is important to collapse existing disciplinary walls between AE and EE to effectively reposition both as critical public goods and address inequitable access to environmental and agricultural knowledge among the next generation. In this paper, we outline the historical context for the silos between U.S.-based AE and EE programmatic and research practice. We then present a new collaborative structure for scholars in both fields to work together to build agricultural and environmental literacy in support of environmentally sustainable, economically robust, and socially responsible agroecosystems. Ultimately, we aim to create structures for broader and more collaborative efforts through which to improve agricultural and environmental literacy for new generations of learners.
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U2 - 10.1080/13504622.2022.2040431
DO - 10.1080/13504622.2022.2040431
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85125869603
SN - 1469-5871
VL - 28
SP - 1410
EP - 1422
JO - Environmental Education Research
JF - Environmental Education Research
IS - 9
ER -