Teaching Landscape Irrigation Design to Non-Engineering College Students

摘要

Landscape irrigation classes taught at the university or junior college level train people who fill the need for qualified installation, maintenance, and design personnel in the landscape industry. While acknowledging that learning objectives and teaching outcomes vary by academic program and institution, the goal of this article is to present a didactic approach for teaching landscape irrigation design to non-engineering students, based on informed practice and personal observation. The authors, who have taught landscape irrigation design to a wide range of college students, present a collective five-step approach to the topic. Each of the five steps is ordered to maintain student attention and interaction with the subject. Each step can be treated as an independent unit of study for new course development, or as a framework for improvement of an existing course. A sample syllabus is provided to show how the five-step methodology can be incorporated into the explicit learning objectives of a typical `college course. Results from three years of student evaluations are presented as a case study showing that the five-step approach can be applied with positive results in terms of student attitude and perceived teacher performance. This article encourages further input and discussion from readers and educators, given the increasing importance of knowledgeable irrigation design, operation, and maintenance personnel in a water-hungry world