Abstract:
Agriculture is in a stage of rapid change that will continue into the future. These changes are greatly affected by issues of world population/food production trends, land and water resource, fossil fuel depletion, predicted climate change, biodiversity loss, and world grain trade. These issues were incorporated into a sophomore-level field crop production course at the University of Nebraska in 1992. After completion of units on these issues, students responded to a questionnaire inquiring about interest and usefulness of the units, and whether the issues had been studied previously at the University. Students perceived the issues of "land and water resource" and "world grain trade" to be of most interest, and "predicted climate change" and "biodiversity loss" to be of least interest. Although student interest varied, students perceived study of all issues to be useful. All issues except "land and water resource" had been studied by less than 50% of the students. Efforts to incorporate these issues into agricultural science courses are needed.
Keywords:
world issues, teaching units, Nebraska
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