How Agriculture can be made Sexy:
Bring in the Excitement of Science,
the Tenacity of Family.
(all images from Bing.com)
the Tenacity of Family.
(all images from Bing.com)
Until today, Wednesday, 15 April 2020, I never thought Science could be exciting to Farming Families until I read a very boring paper by Professor Emeritus Jose R Velasco, Arcelia A Alejar & Maribel L Dionisio-Sese titled “Discourse On The Methods Of Science” on pages 215-219 of the The Philippine Agricultural Scientist, PAS, April-June 2000. And why am I reading a 20-year old technical journal? My wife Ampy and I have been rearranging the hundreds of books, journals and manuscripts in my room, and that one happened to be within arm’s reach. Serendipity. Now, I connect the Schools, Colleges & Universities, SCUs, to youth entrepreneurship.
The youth are being enticed by Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie to help translate from thought to action his “The New Thinking For Agriculture.”
I have been thinking about how the youth can contribute directly to the new PH Agriculture, but failed. Until today, reading that April-June 2000 journal issue – I was reading it just because I knew that I was included in the editorial staff, thus: Assistant Editors – Frank A Hilario & Maria Lourie C Victor. OK Bautista was Editor In Chief.
This paper in that journal was titled “Discourse On The Methods Of Science.” Yes, “The Methods Of Science.” Methods, plural. I did not know that!
And so, as I was reading the paper, I got excited about those methods of science:
To excite the youth in agriculture, get them excited in the methods of science!
With financing from the Ahon Lahat, Pagkain Sapat, ALPAS initiative, through the SCUs, through their thinking, Galileo, Bacon & Descartes can inspire PH youth in agriculture, yes! Pairing Father & Son and Mother & Daughter gives it another twist – they study Science together.
And so with the SCUs, the family pairs choose any of these scientific methods to come up with their aggie enterprise:
(1) Naturalistic method. Essentially observation. Galileo, Father of Modern Science[1], was an astute observer, not your usual “scientist.”
(2) Case-study method. The PAS authors say, “This is frequently used in the social sciences.” It may result in a hypothesis such as the relationship between educational attainment of the farmer and profitability of his farming enterprise.
(3) Correlative method. The authors say, “Sometimes we want to know if there is a relationship ... for example, between the height of a plant and the length of its fruit... We simply make some measurements.”
(4) Differential or comparative method. This is the one thought of as “the scientific method” of study: You set up experiments that vary in 1 or 2 treatments, and that’s it – you may have data for your business.
The family pairs study a little before they make their enterprise decision. And so that 20-year old issue of the PAS gave this 79-year old teacher a New Year’s Insight regarding the Methods of Science and the Youth. You? Never too old/young to learn!@517
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