An estimated 200,000-800,000 children and adolescents work in the United States as migrant agricultural laborers, either alone or with their families. This digest describes the statutory and economic factors contributing to the presence of children in the fields and the impact of this labor on their health and educational progress. The Fair Labor…

The traditional relationships between rural and urban areas and the changes brought on by specialized rural industries discussed. The digest reviews work that has investigated the impact of farming, manufacturing, and mining on education. The effect of agricultural activity on academic achievement, especially via vocational agriculture programs,…

Considers the influences of biology on English literature between 1500 and 1900. Public education and interest in the biological sciences is examined from the viewpoints of medicine, agriculture, and natural history. Trends in literature are reviewed chronologically by century. (CS)

Presents a 52-item bibliography of works in the ERIC collection dealing with science instruction at two-year colleges. The entries cover the areas of general science, agriculture, biology, chemistry, earth science, economics, engineering, environmental sciences, interdisciplinary sciences, social science, mathematics, physics, psychology, and…

The federal Migrant Education Program aims to minimize the negative effects on migrant children and youth caused by constant mobility and interrupted schooling. A primary activity of the program involves considerable efforts to identify and recruit children eligible for services. However, finding migrant children is not an easy task. This digest…

Designed to serve as a framework in which high school debate students, coaches, and judges can evaluate the issues, arguments, and evidence concerning which agricultural policies best serve the United States, this booklet provides guidelines for research on the 1986-87 debate resolutions selected by the National Federation of State High School…

The Military Curriculum Project at the National Center for Research in Vocational Education has been responsible for reviewing approximately 1,400 military courses and selecting those which are applicable to civilian vocational and technical programs. The course materials have been found to be useful as classroom materials and as curriculum…

The world of modern biotechnology is based on recent developments in molecular biology, especially those in genetic engineering. Since this is a relatively new and rapidly advancing field of study, there are few traditional sources of information and activities. This digest highlights biotechnology resources including those that can be found on…

To help educators quickly grasp demographic information and social and economic issues facing migrant farmworkers, this digest summarizes several recent federal reports. These reports are the National Agricultural Workers Survey, conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor in 1997-98; Current Population Survey data, from the Census Bureau; and the…

Presented are abstracts and abstractors' analyses of nine studies related to curriculum and instruction. These studies focused on: (1) the status of environmental education in Kansas; (2) attitudes of Israeli students toward two versions of a curriculum titled Agriculture as Environmental Science; (3) interrelationships among teacher intentions,…

The skills most often mentioned in definitions of critical thinking are the ability to think creatively, make decisions, solve problems, visualize, reason, analyze, interpret, and know how to learn. Vocational education should be involved in developing thinking skills for the following reasons: occupations are becoming more reliant on cognitive…

This directory contains brief descriptions and contact information for organizations, agencies, and publications related to rural education. Mindful of the wide variety of issues impacting rural schools and related information needs, the directory includes national associations, research and training centers, health organizations, publishers,…

Capstones are culminating experiences in which students synthesize subject-matter knowledge they have acquired, integrate cross-disciplinary knowledge, and connect theory and application in preparation for entry into a career. Capstone courses should be both a synthesis and a bridge to students' future after graduation. In career and technical…

Despite 1983 Elementary and Secondary Education ACT (ESEA) Title I federal funding of over $255 million for more than 3,000 projects for some 600,000 migrant children and youth, there is still need for alternate funding sources to overcome spiraling inflation and increasing program costs and numbers of eligible children. Other federal, state,…

This monograph investigates issues related to the financial support of rural schools. The first section describes various state formulas and the methods used to distribute funds to rural schools. It considers questions about the adequacy of funding adjustments based on sparsity and the relationship of such adjustments to equal educational…