Agriculture and Science Integration: a Pre-service Prescription for Contextual Learning

The purpose of the study was to determine if the delivery of an integrated agriculture and science curriculum to Agricultural Education MAT (Master of Arts in Teaching) pre-service teachers increased their desire and ability to integrate their own curriculum and collaborate with other teachers once they started teaching, and to identify social and cultural barriers in existence between secondary teachers in agriculture and science. The population for the treatment group consisted of all graduate students enrolled in the 1996-97 MAT Agricultural Education cohort at a west coast university. The control group consisted of the prev ious J i ve Agricultural Education cohorts at the same school. The research combined a series of personal interviews with the treatment group in addition to the written questionnaire administered to the treatment and control groups. The questionnaire served as the comparison for the groups. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Evidence indicated that the treatment group was positive about integrating science into the agriculture curriculum and they were more willing to attend workshops about the integration of science than were members of the control group. Furthermore, the treatment group felt that preparation time was the greatest barrier in working with the science teacher in their school.