News
Successful online Summer School Greenhouse Horticulture
This year's Summer School Greenhouse Horticulture had 68 participants from 24 countries, and from all continents. Due to corona, the training was completely online. That improved the content of the discussions. The Summer School Greenhouse Horticulture is organized by the Business Unit Greenhouse Horticulture and the Horticulture and Product Physiology chair group of WUR in collaboration with Wageningen Academy.
The aim of the Summer School Greenhouse Horticulture is to teach a varied, international group a lot in a short time about developments in protected crops, such as crop management and climate management. Due to the corona crisis, the entire ten-day program took place online: participants could watch pre-recorded lessons each day, and then discuss online in a larger group. A teaching day lasted an average of five hours (three hours pre-recored seminars to watch at the participant's convenience and two hours live discussion).
New format
The fact that the Summer School Greenhouse Horticulture took place online was an emergency measure. But it also had benefits. This allowed more participants to be admitted: normally the maximum number is 35, this year 68. They came from all over the world: from the US to Oceania, spanning twenty time zones. The on-line discussions were compressed into two hours, timed to accommodate as much as possible such extension. Therefore, this year, not just one teacher at a time, but more teachers took part in those online meetings. This made the discussions better and more in-depth as teachers could complement each other.
The participants were enthusiastic. “Feel good about the professional and detailed explanation", commented one. “The content from the lectures was great, and the weblectures were very clear and magnified the value of the slides' content", said another. And: “All lectures had significant scientific background which was the reason I wanted to attend this summer school from the beginning."
There will also be a Summer School Greenhouse Horticulture in 2022, although the format will be decided later after an evaluation.