This paper examines the experiences of one adult educator's engagement with Freire's praxis through teaching horticulture. The principal belief of the paper is that engaging in critical dialogue and reflexive action is an evolving journey of unlearning and hope for both learners and educators. The paper suggests that trusting in Freire's…

Active learning pedagogies offer opportunities to increase student engagement and interest in plants. The Mystery Plant Project is a hands-on, semester-long active learning pedagogy I developed for an introductory, undergraduate Plant Biology course. Students investigate various aspects of their mystery plant species using observations, and…

The authors describe how grade 4 students carried out an investigation about growing cucumbers (members of the curcurbit or gourd family) where they read information sources about seed variety; germinated seeds under different conditions; measured and partitioned growing spaces; collected and analyzed data on germination, true leaf growth, and…

In recent years, many schools have taken up food gardening. This is a welcome trend, but it has had to be conducted as an extracurricular activity, often with the help of, or run by, parents and grandparents. Growing vegetables and fruit, if it is to be done well, is a complex activity. The potential good outcomes for health, learning, and…

The Family and Consumer Science (FCS) Department at Charles F. Patton Middle School in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, planted a garden to provide students with an organic horticulture experience. Although the garden provided the FCS Department space to grow plants, Patton Middle School FCS teachers Betsy Ballard and Kim Hislert believed it wasn't…

Teaching design to middle and high school students can be challenging. One of the first procedures in teaching design is to help students gather information that will be useful in the design phase. An early stage of engineering design as described by Lewis (2005), calls for the designer to establish the state of the art of the problem. During this…

At Montpelier High School (MHS) in Vermont, students are accustomed to making changes in their school and community. Over the last six years, MHS students have participated in the Annual Winooski River Cleanup Project, the construction of a solar-powered greenhouse that provides produce for the school's cafeteria, and a thriving composting program…

Three-dimensional visualization is helpful in understanding soils, and three dimensional (3-D) tools are gaining popularity in teaching earth sciences. Those tools are still somewhat underused in soil science, yet soil properties such as texture, color, and organic carbon content vary both vertically and horizontally across the landscape. These…

This document contains teacher's materials for an 8-unit course in greenhouse management for 11th and 12th graders. The units are as follows: Producing Annual Bedding Plants; Foliage Plants; General Greenhouse Management; Poinsettia Production; Vegetable Bedding Plant Production: Tomatoes, Peppers, and Eggplants; Production of Potted…

Enrollment by students in degree programs other than traditional horticulture, agronomy, and soil science has increased in basic plant and soil science courses. In order to broaden the appeal of these courses to students from majors other than agriculture, we developed a hands-on laboratory exercise relating the basic concepts of a soil energy…

This teacher's guide is designed for use in a vocational horticulture course designed to prepare students for jobs as nursery workers. Addressed in the individual units of the guide are the following topics: the nursery industry; soils; plant growth; plant nutrition; plant propagation methods; nursery field practices; pest control; techniques for…

This document contains the occupational duty/task lists for 9 occupations in the horticulture series. Each occupation is divided into a number of duties. A separate page for each duty in the occupation lists the tasks in that duty along with its code number and columns to indicate whether that particular duty has been taught and to provide space…

This set of teacher-developed instructional units is intended for use in secondary-level vocational agriculture courses dealing with landscape and nursery management courses. The following topics are covered in the individual units: identification of landscape plants, selection of landscape plants, understanding soils and fertilizers, water…

A curriculum for the jobs of specialty grower, plant propagator, and horticultural worker I and II is provided in this guide. It contains curriculum guidesheets for seven duties: performing administrative functions; preparing soil and growing media; propagating horticultural plants; growing plants; performing maintenance operations; harvesting…

A horticultural core curriculum and draft copies of three horticultural cluster curricula are provided. Materials related to the curriculum development project appear first. The core curriculum is designed to provide broad initial instruction in horticulture for students in the first year of a secondary-level vocational horticulture program. The…