Grudens-Schuck, Nancy

Extensive row-crop agricultural production systems dominant in the United States Corn Belt are designed to produce high yields of a small number of commodities at low production costs. While remarkably valuable, this model of agriculture is directly and indirectly associated with significant externalized public costs and questions about its long-term viability. Agro-environmental conservation policy in the United States has failed to deliver desired environmental outcomes at broad scales, in part, because policy is supply-oriented with scaled financial and technical incentives aimed at the interests of individual farm managers. Understanding broader stakeholder demand relative to agro-ecosystem outcomes is fundamental to modifying policy toward outcomes. Failed collective policy and management, often indicates failed consensus among stakeholders whose responsibilities are to provide guidance for achieving outcomes. We used a Delphi approach with representatives from Iowa-based agricultural and/or environmental policy, outreach, and industry organizations to explore whether or not consensus may exist regarding desired agricultural outcomes and if so, modes of provision. Through three iterative surveys, we found consensus regarding the array of ecosystem outcomes believed possible within the Iowa agricultural economy. However, when agricultural interests were sorted, a divide emerged between stakeholders who emphasize production agriculture and those who favor a more multi-outcome oriented agriculture that emphasizes multiple ecosystem services. Nevertheless, study participants identified several key ecosystem outcomes, and methods for providing them that are strongly compatible with and support private commodity driven land use while mitigating costly public externalities. A broad and simple six-point framework emerged from our data to contextualize questions and discussions of agricultural land-use management among stakeholders. This framework includes people, their expectations and values, land, management, and ecosystem processes in addition to ecosystem services. Broadening and bounding discourse in these ways may facilitate a shared appreciation of human-nature interconnections and more progressive policy reform that facilitates understanding of land-use decision making within agricultural contexts in ways that benefit all stakeholders.

Addressing the needs of Latino workers can help improve working conditions, job satisfaction, and productivity of both employees and the companies hiring Latino workers. The study reported here assessed educational needs, communication gaps, and technical skills of Latino workers working in the horticultural industry in Iowa—an ethnic group that is relatively new to Iowa. Focus groups were conducted with Latino workers and produced topics for educational programming and suggestions that could improve communications between predominantly English-speaking managers and Spanish-speaking Latino employees, and the horticultural knowledge of the Latino employees.

Focus group research can produce highly useful information about programs and services that surveys miss. Learn how to gather rich detail.

Focus groups don't work for every purpose. Determine appropriate use of focus groups to get high quality information for high quality decision-making.

Digital games, especially simulations, have supported student learning outcomes in the areas of science and agriculture in classrooms and nonformal settings. Simulations contribute robustly to student achievement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and agriculture content areas, especially when they are aligned with national education standards. The People in Ecosystems Watershed Integration (PEWI) simulation is a digital game that was evaluated for fit to two national standards: the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and the Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources Standards (AFNR). The evaluation of alignment of PEWI to NGSS provided “extensive” evidence on a four‐point scale for meeting Criterion A: Explaining phenomenon/designing solutions; Criterion B: 3‐D learning, science and engineering practices, rated for three areas: (a) “extensive” for science and engineering practices, (b) “adequate” for disciplinary core ideas, and (c) “extensive” for cross‐cutting concepts. Additionally, PEWI aligned with nine high school–level NGSS student performance expectations categories. For AFNR Standards, the PEWI evaluation provided evidence for alignment to 10 standards and 17 indicators from the AFNR areas of Environmental Service Systems, Natural Resource Systems, and Plant Systems.

Citizen science programs directly engage the public in collecting data for science-related projects. This paper will investigate the claim that citizen science programs deliver opportunities and outcomes for a specific kind of benefit, “civic engagement.” The paper will identify specific behaviors and conditions that have been used as indicators of citizen engagement in citizen science and discuss probable theoretical bases. Second, the paper will report on progress of an empirical study (a program evaluation) conducted in spring of 2016 of the Iowater Program, a citizen science program managed by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, which has trained over 5,000 citizens in water monitoring and reporting. The Iowater evaluation will ground the discussion of citizen science in contemporary experiences of the public.

Horticulture is the fastest-growing sector of the agricultural industry, and this is true particularly in Iowa where the number of private horticultural businesses has more than doubled since 1993. The industry is relying more on non-English–speaking employees, especially Spanish-speaking workers, for golf course maintenance, landscape installation, and nursery production. Determining and serving the educational and training needs of a workforce that is not fluent in English is historically difficult for university extension programs. This study assessed educational needs and technical issues of English-speaking managers of primarily Spanish-speaking workers in the horticultural industry in Iowa, with special attention to language and cultural issues. Four focus groups were conducted, with managers recruited in cooperation with state professional horticultural associations. Communication gaps and challenges interpreting cultural differences were cited as key difficulties experienced by managers of Latino workers. The study produced a list of ideas for educational initiatives that would improve lateral (two-way) communications and delivery of Iowa-specific horticultural education and job-site training between English-speaking managers and Latino employees.

This article introduces to the agricultural Extension community a decision-support system—the Community Assessment Model for Odor Dispersion (CAM)—that is helping Iowa swine producers minimize potential odor conflict. Additionally, we share our rationale and approach to evaluating both CAM and its outreach approach. CAM accounts for local conditions and helps producers assess odor risk from new facilities. Based on a user survey, 75% of producers rated CAM as "useful" to "very useful" in decision-making. Results suggest that CAM has passed the primary test of applied science as measured by usefulness to producers in making better decisions.

Want better dialogue in your watershed group? Proles may result from participants' misunderstanding of geographic scale. The Watershed Learning Activity can foster an understanding of the importance of geographic scale through group-based experiential learning that combines aerial photography and conceptual change theory. Try it at your next watershed meeting.

Evaluating and monitoring routine Extension projects is hard enough. Programs that feature concepts like public issues education (PIE), public dialogue, or civic engagement are even more challenging. Familiar "rules and regs" of good evaluation still apply, but hints, warnings, and new resources can help. After 10 years of Extension PIE initiatives, there are also examples of evaluations of PIE that can guide planning.