A professional development climate course for sustainable agriculture in Australia

Abstract

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.

Identifying needs and enhancing learning about climate change adaptation for water professionals at the post-graduate level

“…This process complements adult learning theory where there is preference for self-directed learning (Knowles 1975), and building on experiences (Kolb 1984). Further details of this approach are provided in companion papers (George et al 2005(George et al , 2006George, Clewett et al 2009). …”

“…Component 3 introduced the CCRM, a proven useful tool for practitioners and for communicating risk management concepts and developing risk management options for adapting to climate change (George, Clewett, et al 2009;George, Tan, et al 2009;The World Bank 2011c). This approach has been developed by others also to address climate change across a wide range of industries and sectors (AGO 2006;Cobon et al 2009;Damania et al 2010).…”

“…The Needs survey assessed individual needs and opinions with respect to water planning and climate change adaptation and were adapted from George et al (2005George et al ( , 2006; ; ; ; George, Clewett, et al (2009). The Evaluation survey assessed knowledge and skills against this aspect of the module Learning Outcomes, as well as asking open questions about participants' learnings and how they could be applied, and other issues about the learnings (adapted from George et al 2005George et al , 2006George, Clewett, et al 2009). Response formats included ratings of importance, rankings, and written comments.…”

“…Evaluation is based on the processes developed by Bennett (1976), Davis (2003), and George et al (2006); ; ; ; George, Clewett, et al 2009). …”

“…Generally, this information was well received by participants. It was unsurprisingly welcomed most by those in developing countries, particularly where it was seen as 'new technology', as it can utilize and update local data and simplifies complex climatological data into Tables and Figures that help answer key questions asked by practitioners (Clewett 2003;George et al 2005George et al , 2006George, Clewett, et al 2009). …”