Nationally, both science and agricultural education professional organizations have identified agriculture as a fundamental technology to be studied by students, with the goal of achieving an understanding of the agri-food system necessary for democratic participation. Benchmarks representing the content that K-12 children need to understand about…

Agricultural literacy of K-12 students is a national priority for both scientific and agricultural education professional organizations. Development of curricula to address this priority has not been informed by research on what K-12 students understand about the agri-food system. While students' knowledge of food and fiber system facts have been…

Modern agriculture poses ecological problems and opportunities, which defy simple democratic reform without an educated citizenry. Developing an educated citizenry can be accomplished by further developing agricultural literacy in elementary education. While benchmarks for agricultural literacy have been produced, relatively little attention has…

Results of focus groups with 90 Michigan second- through eighth-grade teachers showed that they viewed the agri-food system from a nutrition and health perspective; nutrition education predominated. Production agriculture had little impact on the curriculum. They wanted a centralized resource for supplemental curriculum materials and support in…

Comparison of responses from 147 elementary teachers and 12 principals showed that, before introduction of an agricultural literacy program, principals were more positive than were teachers about agriculture as a context for science instruction. After the program, teachers' perceptions were more favorable and their comfort with science teaching…