The significance of agriculture to future generations is unparalleled. The United Nations projects the global population to swell to 9.75 billion people by 2050, and to proliferate to 11.2 billion by 2100. The non-agricultural population has little to no understanding or comprehension of the complexities of sustaining a viable agricultural system.…

Minimum passing scores for the Gearing Up for Safety: Production Agriculture Safety Training for Youth curriculum (Gearing Up for Safety) were set in 2006 with widely used and established procedures by efforts of subject matter experts (French, Breidenbach et al., 2007; French, Field, and Tormoehlen, 2006, 2007). While providing a research-based…

Environmental issues can serve as a marvelous framework for high-level student analysis of critical scientific and social concerns. We describe a series of activities and discussions that motivate students to explore environmentalism, sustainable development, carbon offsets, and related ideas with an engaged learning format that helps students to…

The purpose of this study was to identify and describe factors that influence senior agricultural education students' choice to become a secondary agricultural education teacher. The study focused on the extent to which students' beliefs and attitude about teaching influenced their intent to select teaching secondary agricultural education as a…

This descriptive study explores the perceptions of and preferences for leadership development by students enrolled in a comprehensive urban agriculture program. A total of 284 students from the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences participated in the study. The results of the study showed that the average respondent was involved in a…

Some of the author's most valuable experiences as a library media specialist (LMS) were not in a school library. Rather, they were on the streets of Chicago, in community gardens, and on the rooftops of buildings in Humboldt Park, where she was hired by the University of Illinois Community Informatics Initiative as a graduate assistant and LMS in…

The beliefs and mental images that teachers have about agriculture likely influence what and how they integrate agriculture into their instruction. The purpose of this action research study was to explore the beliefs and needs of elementary and junior high school teachers in regard to integrating agriculture into their classrooms. The sample…

THE STUDY ATTEMPTED (1) TO DETERMINE WHETHER OR NOT SOCIOECONOMICALLY DISADVANTAGED PUPILS AND TWO OTHER SOCIOECONOMIC GROUPS OF PUPILS IN SECONDARY SCHOOL GRADES PLACED A SIGNIFICANTLY DIFFERENT CONNOTATIVE MEANING ON SELECTED WORDS AND PHRASES WHICH ARE OF IMPORTANCE TO VOCATIONAL EDUCATION IN AGRICULTURE, (2) TO DETERMINE WHETHER OR NOT THE…

This report is concerned with the climate of opinion prevailing among Illinois farm, rural non-farm, and urban residents in 1978 and the implications of these opinions for agriculture and rural communities in the 1980's. A sample of more than 8,000 adult Illinois residents were questioned about land use, government regulatory programs, and local…

This is traditionally an annual hearing of the Committee with school nutrition managers who travel to Washington, DC. Their representatives testify to the Committee regarding the practical benefits of the nutrition policies under the legislative review of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee. Testimony was presented by Senators…

This resource guide provides teachers of grades K-3 with ideas and materials to integrate agricultural concepts into classroom activities. The guide is organized into six categories: math, science, language arts, social studies, fine arts, and health/nutrition/safety. Each of the categories contains 10 lessons organized in the following topic…

This resource guide provides teachers of grades 4-6 with ideas and materials to integrate agricultural concepts into classroom activities. The guide is organized into six categories: math, science, language arts, social studies, fine arts, and health/nutrition/safety. Each category contains 10 lessons organized in the following topic order:…

"The Geography Teacher" provides hands-on reference and educative material for K-12 Geography teachers. The journal also pioneers innovative ideas for contemporary teaching methods, including lesson plans. This issue contains the following: (1) Ask Dr. de Blij (Dr. Harm de Blij); (2) Refugees in America (TGT); (3) Guinness and the Irish…

The Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs (IIRA) started at Western Illinois University in 1989. An outgrowth of the population declines and economic stagnation during the early 1980s, it provides a comprehensive program of applied research, technical assistance, policy evaluation, and educational outreach to community leaders and residents in…

Although the Illinois Farmland Assessment Act is not an educational finance reform but is designed to ease the increasing tax burden on the state's farmland and provide a uniform, state-wide method of farmland tax valuation, it has a significant impact on K-12 public school financing because of the relationship between property and public school…