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Featured Courses:Interdisciplinary core curriculum in intelligent agriculture

The Center aims to effectively promote the teaching of intelligent agriculture, cultivate talents in digitalization and intelligentization, and respond to the needs in the manufacturing, sales automation, and farmers’ education of future bio-industry production. In 2019, the Center begins to offer courses about intelligent agriculture by integrating resources from bio-industrial departments in the College and combining the professional knowledge of agronomy, animal science, horticulture, forestry, biotechnology, biotechnology, agricultural economics and biotechnology, etc.. The Center invites lecturers from all departments in the College to design an interdisciplinary course package, providing students a comprehensive understanding of the production, protection, and consumption in the agriculture industry. With these efforts, we expect to cultivate outstanding interdisciplinary professionals for Taiwanese agriculture industry, help reduce the impact of the shortage of agricultural labor force and extreme weather, and try to improve the habitual production and sales patterns in rural regions, in pursuance of launching a new agricultural revolution.

The interdisciplinary core curriculum in intelligent agriculture covers:

1. Introduction of Intelligent Agriculture: The introductory course offers a comprehensive and interdisciplinary perspective on intelligent agriculture. Students are expected to learn about the sensing and monitoring of agricultural resources, the growth of animals and plants, and food processing; data concerning agricultural conditions such as climate, animal welfare, insect pests, weed control; the subtle remote control of field production, such as precise fertilization and pesticide spraying through robots and intelligent machines; the remote control of agricultural product transportation, such as controlling the environmental conditions during transportation to trace agricultural products and improve their quality; and thus how the agriculture industry is more closely linked to the health industry, changing the consumption patterns and the agricultural business models. The course covers bioinformatics and biostatistics, crops cultivation, livestock and poultry raising, intelligent barns, pest management, cold chain, and food safety, etc..
2. Intelligent Technology in Agriculture Workshop: With the rapid development of intelligent technology, the production, protection, and consumption in agriculture has changed from automation to digitalization and intelligentization. This workshop is designed to support the course Introduction of Intelligent Agriculture. Through hands-on practice and several institutional visits, students will see how intelligent technology is applied in the agriculture industry, experience in person all aspects of intelligent agriculture, and meet agribusiness owners. They will then better understand the potential, current status and future trends of intelligent agriculture, and are expected to utilize what they have learned, bridge the industry with the academia, and bring great changes in local agriculture. The course covers deep learning software operation, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) operation and data collection, image processing technology, wireless network kit, self-propelled vehicle navigation and arm workshop, field visits to agricultural demonstrations areas, etc..

Innovative teaching methods and curriculum

1. Teaching methods: The Center has established a professional community for lecturers with different abilities to collaborate in lesson preparation, topic discussion, teaching observation and discussion, and featured lesson plan designing and other innovations. During the teaching sessions, lecturers guide students to use computers (or tablet computers) to complete discussions and activities, which enables students to learn through cooperation, familiarize themselves with the learning materials, and thus enhance their ability in higher-order thinking.
2. Interdisciplinary learning: The cross-discipline courses increase the opportunities for the professors to meet students from various departments in the College of Bioresources and Agriculture. Through activities such as lectures, topic discussions and group practices, both the lecturers and the students gain new insight into different domains.