Undergraduate Student Perceptions Following Participation in Applied Agricultural Labs 1

Experiential learning in science courses can increase student learning, but connecting students with field-scale agricultural production in a major city can be challenging. A new course teaching agronomic topics required the development of new laboratory experiences. The objective of this study was to assess student perceptions of two new laboratory activities (related to crop harvest and planter meter evaluation) from three offerings of the course (20172019). Upon completion of these experiential labs, students were surveyed regarding the efficacy of each experience. Survey respondents (43 to 46% response rate) agreed or strongly agreed that they gained skills related to each laboratory activity (4.18 to 4.81/5.00, where 5 is strongly agree). Respondents agreed they enjoyed the laboratory activities (4.47 to 4.81) and gained an appreciation for how planter meter units are evaluated (4.63). All students that completed the open response question related to whether the lab should be repeated in the future agreed that both labs should be continued. These results suggest the laboratory activities were effective at increasing perceived knowledge, and were perceived positively. Future work should look to adapt these activities using alternate practices to allow for use in locations without the capacity for large-scale field operations.