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conferenceseries.com
Volume 8 Journal of Ecosystem & Ecography Biodiversity Congress 2018
July 26-27, 2018
July 26-27, 2018 Melbourne, Australia
7th International Conference on
Biodiversity Conservation and Ecosystem Management
Integration of agricultural education and biodiversity: Introducing synecoculture into elementary
school in Taiwan
Kai-Yuan Lin1, Tsai-Ching Yeh2 and Masatoshi Funabashi3
1University of Tokyo, Japan
2Taiwan University, Taiwan
3Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Taiwan
As food safety incidents happen continually, people put more concern on food, therefore “Food and agricultural education”
become a trend. Food and agricultural education are divided into two parts, one is food education that combines nutrition,
safety and culture, the other is agriculture education that focuses on food source, farming and environment. Currently, teachers
teach the nutrition, biology which is written on the textbook, but without the practical and in-field experience, the agriculture
education is insufficient in Taiwan. Our project combines agriculture education and synecoculture, in collaboration with Sony CSL
in Japan. Synecoculture is an open-field crop cultivation method, which eliminates the use of tillage, fertilizer, pesticide, herbicide
and totally relies on the productivity based on biodiversity. There are three reasons to introduce synecoculture to the elementary
school: (1) Less field labor which makes easier access for elementary school students to experience and understand, (2) It includes
both knowledge and practice: Learning on biodiversity and the training of farming skills and (3) Elementary school is the primary
education that makes an important influence in one’s life. Our primary object of introducing this system into elementary school is to
raise future educators and students’ confidence and familiarity to farming. Inspire their concern about biodiversity, and rethinking
the origin of food. The first step is to build teachers’ know-how and skill of synecoculture. After teachers would become more
familiar with field working and acquire farming skill, the next step is to realize and fuse the agriculture education into the courses
and work with students. This research proposes method and design of biodiversity knowledge building in agricultural education,
step by step overcoming the difficulty and to design a series of courses for students in a practical way. In addition, within the
agriculture education, the data on plant growth will be collected and analyzed with statistical tools.
Biography
Kai-Yuan Lin has his expertise in industrial design as well as system design and passion in improving the food safety and agricultural education. He had educational
experience from Imperial College, London and Pratt Institute, New York which made him able to integrate the advantage of Europe and US in agriculture field.
He is the Engineer and Designer, focus on complex system toward the important social issue. He collaborates with Masatoshi Funabashi in Sony CSL on the
Synecoculture project in Taiwan.
Kai-Yuan Lin et al., J Ecosyst Ecogr 2018, Volume 8
DOI: 10.4172/2157-7625-C4-041