By Michael Barnes
Declining enrollments in turfgrass science programs coupled with similar declines in agronomy and horticulture have caused a deficit in students across these critical majors. This has subsequently caused a significant shortage of workers across the landcare industry at a time where jobs that would benefit from and require turfgrass science and horticulture knowledge are in greater demand. The question then becomes how to engage students with opportunities to learn about turfgrass science outside of traditional pathways? This question was central to a United States Department of Agriculture funded project that attempted to illuminate some new avenues to expose students to concepts from turfgrass science outside of those courses alone.
Where did we start?
To assess the current state of turfgrass science education and how to expand it in the future, we initiated a systematic examination of higher education institutions in the state of Minnesota for the presence of and possibility for managed urban landscape curricula. So why ‘managed urban landscapes’? The simple fact is that there are only a handful of turfgrass science and horticulture programs within the state, and if we want to broaden the reach of these disciplines we need to start with a wider frame of reference. The other aspect that is important is that turfgrass landscapes are ones that are inherently managed and generally located in places where people live, which are cities of various sizes from Maynard to Mankato to Minneapolis. Starting with this broad framing, we gathered a sample of schools that included 64 institutions which cover about 90% of the total undergraduates in the state. From there we started looking at majors and minors across these institutions, and ended up assessing over 51,000 courses for the presence or possibility of managed urban landscape curricula. To expand on this we also looked at where these courses were located meaning 1) what kind of institutions offered these courses or could and 2) which departments/programs had such courses?
What did we find?
Out of 51,000 courses we found that only around 600 (~1%) contained or possibly could contain managed urban landscape curricula. That might seem like quite a small number, but when you account for the vast number of majors offered that have nothing to do with this area (e.g. music) it starts to make a bit more sense and is a more hopeful finding! In terms of where these courses were located some interesting things emerged. First, the majority of courses were found at public universities offering doctoral levels of education. While this isn’t surprising given the distribution of students in the state at large public institutions, what was surprising was the significant number of courses presently offered at associate's institutions. In fact, these schools were the only group that had a higher proportion of courses with managed urban landscape curricula than courses with the potential for incorporating that curricula in the future. Meaning that they are doing a good job already at exposing students to concepts and information about these landscapes. The greatest opportunity for expanding managed urban landscape content is at public doctoral institutions. So what about where these courses are located in terms of departments and programs? Well, surprisingly the majority of both present and possible courses are located in programs that might not initially leap to mind - biology and geography. However on closer examination, these disciplines are perfectly positioned to be harbors for such curricula. First, biology courses, especially at smaller institutions, are blending with content and concepts from ecology. Together then such courses address concepts about ecosystem health and diversity and how humans relate to and impact such systems. Second, the presence of such classes in geography is explained by the disciplines focus on understanding human-environment interactions. This facilitates incorporation of concepts about urban ecosystems to be easily blended into courses in geography. If you’d like to read about this work in more detail we’ve published an open-access manuscript titled: “Unearthing green potential: Assessing the state of managed urban landscape curricula in Minnesota's higher education institutions,” in the journal Natural Sciences Education.
Where do we go from here?
Now that we’ve identified where and how managed urban landscape curricula manifests across disciplines and institutions we can work on addressing the gaps to help increase the number of students exposed to such concepts. To accomplish this we’re in the process of developing our own curricular materials in the form of modules that will address key concepts in turfgrass science and adjacent disciplines. Curricula will be crafted in a way to allow instructors across disciplines to incorporate these modules into their existing courses; modules will be available in a range of lengths, topics, and depth of concepts as well as being freely available to enhance accessibility. Paired with these modules are student-led research projects for campus and communities that will help students engage with concepts learned in class in a more hands-on manner utilizing the nature nearby (Figure 1). We hope that this examination of the curricula alongside the development of accessible modules and student-led research projects will facilitate an increase in students exposed to and being interested in managed urban landscapes. Hopefully we can begin to address the deficits of both students involved in turfgrass science and horticulture as well as workers in the landcare industry in the state of Minnesota and beyond.
