Progress 09/01/07 to 08/31/12
Outputs
OUTPUTS: This final report describes the activities of September 01, 2011 to August 21, 2012, and provides a brief summary of the most significant output and dissemination activities of this project. In the fall of 2011, effort was devoted to posting the portfolios that students who participated in the 2011 summer field program in Mexico. In addition, during the fall semester, plans were made to prepare and update the spring semester seminar course. In the spring of 2012, the seminar (Agriculture in Emerging Economies: Dairying in Mexico) was offered and enrollment in the class was 16 students. In the summer of 2012, 11 students (among the 16 who enrolled in the seminar) attended the field program in Mexico that took place from August 18 to August 30th, 2012. See details at: https://dairynutrient.wisc.edu/375/page.phpid=764. Site visits and study guides for the 2012 field program were updated according to the availability of Mexican colleagues involved in the planning and implementation of the site visits. Although this grant has come to a term, we intend to pursue our effort to summarize lessons learned and data collected both during the seminar and the field program in a peer-review publication for the NACTA journal. During the life of the grant, 82 students who enrolled in the seminar have been exposed to global agricultural issues and have gained a better understand of the Mexican dairy industry. Among those students, 45 of them engaged in intensive experiential learning during the two-week summer field program in Mexico. The publication, we anticipate, will document the high impact of this program on students views and perspective on global agricultural issues. PARTICIPANTS: The students' opportunity to learn about Mexico have been made possible by many individuals that we may not be able to fully acknowledge here. However, we want to particularly thank the following organizations and individuals:
Our Mexican Partners - a) Jesus Olmos and collaborators at CUALTOS (Centro Universitario Region de los Altos, Universidad de Guadalajara).
- b) Carlos Arriaga and collaborators at UAEM-ICAR (Universidad Autonoma del Estado de Mexico-El Instituto de Ciencias Agropecuarias y Rurales).
- c) Benito Albarran-Portillo at UAEM-Temascaltepec (Universidad Autonoma del Estado de Mexico).
- d) The producers and business owners who gave us much of their valuable time to allowed us the opportunity to visit their homes, farms, and operations.
Our University of Wisconsin Partners - a) CALS International Programs - Laura Van Toll
- b) Department of Dairy Science - Sandy Bertics
TARGET AUDIENCES: The target audience of this project was the undergraduate students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. However, through the field program in Mexico, students and collaborators at our partner institutions have also benefited from the multiple and sustained interactions with our students and faculty. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Not relevant to this project.
Impacts
Items and services produced in the last year of the grant included the seminar, the Mexico field-study program and an international internship. A number of student portfolio entries have been posted publically. Selected student portfolios can be found as follows: - Andrew Zwald portfolio Entry: A Guide to Mexican Fruits
- Claudia Hardie portfolio Entry: A comparison of the Mexican and American Organic Industries
- Corrie Borchert portfolio Entry: Sustainabil ity in Mexican Production Systems
- Jacob Brey portfolio Entry: Instituto Cultural Las Cabanas
- Jennifer Holle portfolio Entry: Cultural Differences Between the US and Mexico
- Karen Schlichter portfolio Entry: Mexican Art
- Lydia Hardie portfolio Entry: What Can a Coop do or You
- The impact of this program can be illustrated by the decision made by students after they have returned from the field program in Mexico. Of the 8 students who attended the summer program in Mexico, one student spent a semester abroad in the Netherlands in the spring of 2012, another student applied successfully for a summer 2012 internship with one of the large Mexican industrial farms that we visited in 2011, and a third student decided to engaged in an 8-week long internship program on a dairy farm in New-Zealands. In each cases, the students provided verbal evidence that the Field trip in Mexico was instrumental in helping them decide to engage in additional international experiences on their own.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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Progress 09/01/10 to 08/31/11
Outputs
This report describes the activities completed in the period of September 01, 2010 to August 31, 2011. Please see previous reports for earlier activities. Additional emphases on documenting student learning outcomes were placed in organizing the 2010 field program in Mexico, which took place between August 11th and August 28th, 2010. The program was designed to engage students in an authentic experience of the Mexican agriculture (a wide range of dairy production systems), the complexity of the smallholder livelihoods, and the core of Mexican culture. Students enrolled in the field study wrote journal entries, answered questions in their note books, reviewed their own assumptions about an array of personal and professional issues and submitted portfolio entries before final grades were assigned for their work in the program. In the Fall 2010, grant activities focused on documenting the educational experience from the students perspectives. Highlights of evaluation of the field program has been posted at http://dairynutrient.wisc.edu/375/page.phpid=789. In the Spring 2011, the Mexico seminar was offered with an enrollment of seventeen. Eight of the students enrolled in the spring seminar will be attending the summer field program (August 15th to August 29th, 2011). The 2011 field program notebook (guidebook) describing expectations is being finalized. These notebook will be collected at the end of the program (August 29, 2011) and content analysis of student notes (with their approval as human subjects) will be conducted in the fall of 2011. Two week after returning on campus, students will be expected to turn in carefully prepared portfolio entries documenting their experience. This data will be added to existing data from earlier years for a peer-reviewed publication anticipated for 2012. In addition, a program alumnus acted as a teaching assistant in the spring 2011 Mexico seminar. Her role included preparing for class activities, reviewing and evaluating student blog entries (see products below), and to maintaining and updating the course website. Also in the spring 2011, data collected over the early years of the grant were analyzed and summarized. An abstract was presented at the 2011 NACTA conference (Edmonton, Alberta, June 13-17). Given the fact that the abstract submission deadline was in February, there was no opportunities to include the data collected in the spring seminar 2011, nor the data that will be collected in the upcoming 2011 summer field program. Thus, a request was made to exteng the life of the grant to provide us with the opportunity to summarize the data and prepare a full publication that we intend to publish either in the NACTA journal or the Journal of Dairy Science in 2012. PRODUCTS: Items and services produced in the fourth year (first year extension) of the grant included the seminar and the field-study which impacted directly 17 and 8 individuals, respectively. A number of student entries have been posted publicly. Selected student portfolios can be found as follows: Lindsay Evers portfolio entry: http://dairynutrient.wisc.edu/375/page.phpid=828. Comparing Mexican and US Perceptions of Time. Ty Hildebrandt portfolio entry: http://dairynutrient.wisc.edu/375/page.phpid=833 Farmer Interview. Carrie Jo Leum portfolio entry: http://dairynutrient.wisc.edu/375/page.phpid=832 Pride. Carissa Levash portfolio entry: http://dairynutrient.wisc.edu/375/page.phpid=830 A Good Deed. Kristen Hibbard portfolio entry: http://dairynutrient.wisc.edu/375/page.phpid=830 Cultural Differences Between the US and Mexico. William Singer portfolio entry: http://dairynutrient.wisc.edu/375/page.phpid=829 Important Values From Each Culture. Also, the spring seminar was enhanced with a new blog feature on the course web site. This feature allowed students to share thoughts and points of discussion after having read or viewed the pre-assigned material, but prior to the regularly scheduled class. Preliminary data indicated a high degree of student satisfaction with this new feature. Course material was updated and an additional web-resources page was created to provide the foundation for a request to elevate this course from a one-credit to a two-credit seminar. OUTCOMES: Preliminary evaluation of this program has been confined to students learning experience in the seminar. With our request for a second year of extension, we intend to summarize and publish students perception of learning outcomes from both the seminar and the field program. Including the data collected in the spring and summer of 2011 in this analysis will provide for a stronger and more completed dataset. The abstract presented at the 2011 NACTA meeting is reported here because it focused on outcomes: Our goal was to help students learn and analyze complex and real-world problems on issues related to social, environmental and economical aspects of dairy farming globally and in the context of US-Mexico relations. Since 2004, 100 students have enrolled in a 1-credit spring seminar (Agriculture in Emerging Economies: Dairying in Mexico; http://dairynutrient.wisc.edu/375/ and 69 students have participated in a follow-up 2-credit, 2-week field program in Central Mexico. Paired t-test (n=34) of survey tools administered at the beginning and end of the semester in 2008, 2009, and 2010 indicated an increase in self-reported knowledge of agriculture in developing countries (4.3 vs. 7.2), agriculture in Mexico (3.9 vs. 7.4), US-Mexico agricultural relations (4.1 vs. 7.4), structure and diversity of the Mexican dairy industry (3.5 vs. 7.7), structure and diversity of the US dairy industry (6.2 vs. 7.7), people and cultures of Mexico (5.7 vs. 6.9) and issues related to poverty in Mexico (5.1 vs. 7.3, all Ps<0.01) when measured on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 10 (a great deal). Score for Expanding agricultural (dairy) trade with Mexico is good for the US increased from 6.0 to 7.6 (P less than 0.01) but the score for Expanding agricultural (dairy) trade with the US is good for Mexico decreased from 6.6 to 4.7 (P less than 0.01). Self-reported learning gains differed among freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors. Although participants in the field program documented personal and academic experiences with portfolio entries published on the aforementioned website, additional reflection opportunities may add pedagogical value to the program. DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES: There are two main portals for access to grant activities, products and outcomes for the course, and the summer field program: Seminar web site http://dairynutrient.wisc.edu/375/. Field program web page http://dairynutrient.wisc.edu/375/page.phpid=21. FUTURE INITIATIVES: This grant was leveraged successfully in getting funds to create case studies on barriers to technology adoption by smallholders in Mexico.
Impacts
Our continued commitment to working with collaborators and partners in Mexico has contributed to developing successful linkages related to science and education in the emerging field of assessment of sustainability of food (dairy) systems. We plan to position the seminar and associated field program as a high impact practices in a fall 2011 competition for Teaching Assistant in the College of Agriculture and Life Science, UW-Madison.
Publications
- Wattiaux, M. A. 2011. An Integrated Approach To Curriculum Development in Global Agriculture: Helping Students Understand and Experience US - Mexico Interdependencies. NACTA J. 55:26 (Suppl. 1)
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Progress 09/01/09 to 08/31/10
Outputs
This report describes the period of September 01, 2009 to August 31, 2010. Please see previous reports for earlier activities. As discussed in last year's report, we have discontinued to use the wording 'study tour' and replace it with 'Field Study.' The reason for this change is in part because of the connotation associated with the word 'tour' in 'study tour'. Over the years we noticed that colleagues and students alike may not appreciate fully the academic and educational experience of the program. The program has been structured as a class with a pre-requisite (a 1 credit seminar), a syllabus and a guide and note book. The trip abroad is not a simple collection of daily visits and overnight stay in hotels. The program is designed to engage students in an authentic experience of the Mexican agriculture (a wide range of dairy production systems), the complexity of the smallholder livelihoods, and the core Mexican culture. Students enrolled in the field study write journal entries, answer questions in their note books, review their own assumptions about an array of personal and professional issues and have to submit portfolio entries before a final grade is assigned for their work in the program. In the fall 2009, activities focused on documenting the education experience of the participating students. To do so, a web page was created: http://dairynutrient.wisc.edu/375/page.phpid=645 . The page includes an itinerary (calendar of activities during the field trip), a description of how we have attempted to capture some of the students' learning, a series of selected students' portfolio entries (artifacts of learning experiences) and an acknowledgment of the various parties and entities who made such experience possible. In the spring of 2010, the web-pages created to document the student-K12 teacher teams were updated and re-designed to help highlight each project. The web page documenting these projects can be found at: http://dairynutrient.wisc.edu/mexico/ In the Spring 2010, the 'Mexico seminar' was offered with an enrollment of fourteen, seven of whom enrolled and attended the follow-up summer field program. Furthermore, considerable efforts were necessary to communicate with our Mexican partners at the University of Guadalajara, Centro universitario de Los Altos (CUAltos, Tepatitlan, Jalisco) and the Universidad Autonoma del Estado de Mexico (UAEM, Toluca, Estado de Mexico) to design and plan the summer 2010 field study. Difficulties in doing so emerged from the retirement of a university staff from the international office who had years of experience in planning (student orientation, financial management and business-related aspects such as ground transportation in Mexico). In the summer of 2010, a group of 9 students (the seven mentioned earlier and two other students who had taken the seminar in a prior year), an assistant and the instructor engaged in a 12-day field program with major site visits in the state of Mexico and Jalisco (August 17-29). Two weeks after returning on campus, students were expected to turn in prepared portfolio entries documenting learning outcomes. PRODUCTS: Items and services produced in this third year included the seminar and the field-study which impacted directly 14 and 9 individuals, respectively. The recruitment of K-12 teachers to work with the 2010 students proved extremely difficult. We believe that our failure to recruit teachers in spite of considerable effort was associated with the great economic recession of 2008-2009, budgetary cuts, and the continued employment uncertainties.
Students' portfolio entries (http://dairynutrient.wisc.edu/375/page.phpid=645 ) are as follows: Jade Buchholz chose to write a letter to her father, accompanied by a poem she wrote, about one of the farm visits in Mexico. Patrick Crave wrote a letter home as a portfolio entry. Josh Hamborg, a political science major, with an emphasis on Latin American Studies (LACIS) and Global Cultures wrote a letter from a fictitious soldier to his commanding officer from Mexico's war for independence. He also wrote a second piece with his observations about eating out in Mexican restaurants compared to eating out in the U.S. Hiroko 'Yoshi' Yoshida, an M.S. in Water Resources Management wrote about some of the unique water challenges in Mexico City. Her second entry is a poem reflecting on what she learned about corn (or maize) in Mexico. Abbie Holig compared the sustainability of different dairy systems in Mexico. Brandon Kruswick reflected on some of the differences and similarities in farming in the U.S. and in Mexico. Eric Ronk compared manure management as he knows it in Wisconsin to some of the places he visited in Mexico. Destanie, a food science major reflected on the sustainability of food production systems. Stephanie Sierra, a student in veterinary medicine assessed the sustainability of three Mexican livestock systems. For her second portfolio entry, she was prompted to compose a letter to the Governor of the State of Wisconsin after seeing the state capital building in Guadalajara, Jalisco. Ashley Sprengeler's portfolio entry reflected on her experience traveling and learning with Mexican students during the field study course in Mexico.
Student - Teacher projects were as follows. First Josh Hamborg worked with Alberto Varga, director of the Latin America, Carribean and Iberian program to develop and present a lecture on small and large scale dairy in Mexico for his class (http://dairynutrient.wisc.edu/375/page.phpid=800). Second, Yoshi developed a series of power point slide on 'The Flow of Water' She worked with Dr. Pete Nowak from the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies (http://dairynutrient.wisc.edu/375/page.phpid=798). Destanie Schneider and Joan Brennan (Middle school science teacher) developed and implemented a lesson unit on the impacts of microorganisms on you and your neighbors acrss borders. The lesson unit can be downloaded from http://dairynutrient.wisc.edu/375/page.phpid=788. Finally, Ashley Sprengeler worked with James Bitner (middle school ESL teacher assistant) to develop a lesson unit on immigration and agriculture. This project's additional outcome was a field-trip of James' students to a local dairy farm (see http://dairynutrient.wisc.edu/375/page.phpid=765 ) OUTCOMES: The evaluation of the 2010 field study will be summarized in the fall of 2010 and presented in next year's report. Field study participants have agreed to attend multiple fall seminar session to share their summer program experience with other students on the UW-Madison campus. DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES: The two main portals for access to grant activities, products and outcomes are the publically available websites for the course, the summer field study and the student-K12 teacher project: http://dairynutrient.wisc.edu/375/, http://dairynutrient.wisc.edu/375/page.phpid=21 and http://dairynutrient.wisc.edu/mexico/ FUTURE INITIATIVES: Initial steps have been undertaken to provide alternative sources of funding for the continuity of this program beyond the life of this grant. Student clubs have been approach to line themselves behind such educational opportunities. Discussions for a coordinate effort in fund raising have been initiated.
Impacts
There is little doubt that participants to the 2009 seminar, field study, and curriculum project have gained a new level of understanding of the global food production issues and in particular the interdependences between the United States and Mexico. This impact is evidenced by the postings and the scholarly material of participants work (lesson plans). Our current effort in summarizing students' portfolio entries and evaluation of field-study experience by the students is to identify students' perception of the relevance of such experience in their personal life and their future career.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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Progress 09/01/08 to 08/31/09
Outputs
(N/A)
Impacts
There is little doubt that participants to the 2008 seminar, field study, and curriculum project have gained a new level of understanding of the global food production issues and in particular the interdependences between the United States and Mexico. This impact is evidenced by the postings and the scholarly material of participants work (lesson plans). Our current effort in summarizing students' portfolio entries and evaluation of field-study experience by the students is to identify students' perception of the relevance of such experience in their personal life and their future career.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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Progress 09/01/07 to 08/31/08
Outputs
(N/A)
Impacts
There is little doubt that the project impacted participants' learning and intellectual progression towards inter-connecting global food production issues and in particular the interdependences between the United States and Mexico. This impact is evidenced by the by postings and the scholarly material of participants work (lesson plans).
One of the instructor has obtained funding from the UW-Madison Global Health Center to return to one of the study tour site visit to carry out a water quality monitoring project.
Another notable achievement is the fact that our colleagues in Mexico have taken the first step in institutionalizing the study tour as an academic offering for their students. They view this tour not as a way to help American to learn about Mexico, but rather as an opportunity for academic advancement for their own students. We believe that the genuine interaction between U.S. participants and Mexican participants (students, teachers and faculty) during the multiparty study tour was extremely impactful on all.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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