Ethics in the agricultural curriculum
2015
Knauft, D A
Researchers, producers, and educators in agricultural sciences face many ethical issues related to a number of issues, including food production, food safety, environmental quality, food security, and international trade. Programs of study in agricultural higher education can provide students with a framework to examine ethical issues, as well as with experience in analyzing these issues. Some colleges of agriculture require all undergraduates to complete a course in agricultural ethics. Frequently such a course is teamtaught by an ethicist and one or more agricultural scientists. It provides students with a background in ethical theories and exposes them to the processes used to make ethical decisions. Disadvantages of this approach include difficulty in adding a course to already crowded curricula and the need to examine broader ethical issues rather than discipline-specific ones. Another model incorporates ethics directly into courses in a range of agricultural subjects. While less time is spent on ethical theories or ethical decision making, students can still be exposed to these concepts either by a guest speaker or by the disciplinary faculty member teaching the course. With this model, students are exposed to ethical issues of greater interest to them. Research has also shown that incorporation of ethical topics can enhance learning scientific content
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