Featured Resource: Organic Agriculture Modules for Teaching Undergraduate Students

Thanks to funding by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative Accession #1007232) to Jabbour from 2015-2018.

Dr. Randa Jabbour (University of Wyoming) and colleagues have created a series of modules consisting of lesson plans and resources for teaching a selection of topics related to organic agriculture. The areas focused on within these modules are partially in response to the results of interviews with 19 faculty members who teach on organic agriculture – most of whom rarely or minimally covered the topics of livestock production and social dimensions. Other topics, such as certification and marketing, were indicated as being quite important and included to highlight producer perspectives. The lessons within each module are not dependent on one another, and all components can be “plugged in” to classes as relevant – for example, you could consider using a lesson from the pest management module within an Integrated Pest Management class not specific to organic agriculture.

Lessons and activities largely rely on student-centered learning approaches, including responses to readings or films and guidelines for productive and engaging discussions that can be adopted in face-to-face classes and online. Most resources referenced in these modules are open-access or freely available. Several lessons are built around an original film series “Organic Producer Perspectives” created as part of this project that entirely consists of the edited interviews of certified organic farmers and ranchers from the United States.

Please reach out to Randa at rjabbour@uwyo.edu with any questions or comments regarding this project. Thank you for your interest.