A Professional Development Climate Course for Sustainable Agriculture in Australia

There are few professional development courses in Australia for the rural sector concerned with climate variability, climate change and sustainable agriculture. The lack of educators with a sound technical background in climate science and its applications in agriculture prevents the delivery of cou...

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Main Authors:	George, D., Clewett, J., Birch, C., Wright, A., Allen, W.
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	EN
Published:	2012
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5232

id	okr-10986-5232
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-52322021-04-23T14:02:21Z A Professional Development Climate Course for Sustainable Agriculture in Australia George, D. Clewett, J. Birch, C. Wright, A. Allen, W. There are few professional development courses in Australia for the rural sector concerned with climate variability, climate change and sustainable agriculture. The lack of educators with a sound technical background in climate science and its applications in agriculture prevents the delivery of courses either stand-alone or embedded in other courses, and adversely affects the ability of graduating students to apply climate information. This paper presents evidence from a professional development climate course with 20 professional educators and consultants and results from: surveys at the training workshop; from a questionnaire 12 months post-workshop; and a combined interview and survey two years post-workshop. The key finding was that professional development courses specifically addressing climate are essential, while topics should include climate and weather, the impacts of climate on agricultural systems, strategic thinking and planning options available for business. A project undertaken by professionals delivering climate education helped to improve their skills and confidence to deliver other stand-alone climate courses or to embed climate in existing courses. The paper proposes that a suitable resource manual should be `problem-based' in its design to allow for a broad range of geographic climates, and should address a wide range of agricultural enterprises including livestock production, horticulture and cropping. The authors also propose ways to introduce and integrate applied climate knowledge and skills into the wider community. Possible progress for inter-disciplinary education and the implications from enhancing learning about climate for sustainable agriculture are discussed. 2012-03-30T07:31:54Z 2012-03-30T07:31:54Z 2009 Journal Article Environmental Education Research 1350-4622 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5232 EN http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Journal Article Australia
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	EN
geographic_facet	Australia
relation	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo
description	There are few professional development courses in Australia for the rural sector concerned with climate variability, climate change and sustainable agriculture. The lack of educators with a sound technical background in climate science and its applications in agriculture prevents the delivery of courses either stand-alone or embedded in other courses, and adversely affects the ability of graduating students to apply climate information. This paper presents evidence from a professional development climate course with 20 professional educators and consultants and results from: surveys at the training workshop; from a questionnaire 12 months post-workshop; and a combined interview and survey two years post-workshop. The key finding was that professional development courses specifically addressing climate are essential, while topics should include climate and weather, the impacts of climate on agricultural systems, strategic thinking and planning options available for business. A project undertaken by professionals delivering climate education helped to improve their skills and confidence to deliver other stand-alone climate courses or to embed climate in existing courses. The paper proposes that a suitable resource manual should be `problem-based' in its design to allow for a broad range of geographic climates, and should address a wide range of agricultural enterprises including livestock production, horticulture and cropping. The authors also propose ways to introduce and integrate applied climate knowledge and skills into the wider community. Possible progress for inter-disciplinary education and the implications from enhancing learning about climate for sustainable agriculture are discussed.
format	Journal Article
author	George, D. Clewett, J. Birch, C. Wright, A. Allen, W.
spellingShingle	George, D. Clewett, J. Birch, C. Wright, A. Allen, W. A Professional Development Climate Course for Sustainable Agriculture in Australia
author_facet	George, D. Clewett, J. Birch, C. Wright, A. Allen, W.
author_sort	George, D.
title	A Professional Development Climate Course for Sustainable Agriculture in Australia
title_short	A Professional Development Climate Course for Sustainable Agriculture in Australia
title_full	A Professional Development Climate Course for Sustainable Agriculture in Australia
title_fullStr	A Professional Development Climate Course for Sustainable Agriculture in Australia
title_full_unstemmed	A Professional Development Climate Course for Sustainable Agriculture in Australia
title_sort	professional development climate course for sustainable agriculture in australia
publishDate	2012
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5232
_version_	1764394389278294016

A Professional Development Climate Course for Sustainable Agriculture in Australia

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