[eitland]

  It's tempting to generalize: If programming is best learned 
  in this playful, bottom-up way, why not everything else? 
  Could there be a Project Euler for English or Biology?

My biology book from farming school 10 years ago: On each page there would be questions that you were supposed to think through before continuing. On the next page there would be answers.

Most of the questions were serious, but in between there where jokes like "What is the white stuff on the outside of chicken poop?" to which the answer was "It's chicken poop too!" and then a longer explanation about how they get rid of uric acid.

(http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_that_white_stuff_in_chicke...)

[puredemo]

Farming school?

[FrojoS]

Agriculture, I think, is one of the next big fields for improvements [1]. But it has always been a source of interesting problems and solutions.

"[...] One way is to randomize the confounding element so that it’s effect is not influencing the element under investigation. If you have to find out which fertilizer is the best, but the water and soil have different properties over your massive 20 acre field, then you need to randomize where you put what fertilizer. It gets even more complicated since you might randomly put them in a really bad formation, so these super smart people came up with ways around that too. [...]"

http://zedshaw.com/essays/programmer_stats.html

[1] Think about robotic green houses in cities for instance. If you isolate your system well you might not even need pesticides and you might save tons of water and energy.

[patrickyeon]

Why not? You're not born knowing how to farm, and if a classroom can turn out better farmers, it makes sense. There's a lot more to crop growing/harvesting and animal husbandry than "throw seeds over there, and while you're waiting for plants to grow you can take these animals' eggs."

[thaumaturgy]

I have read an occasional article on modern farming methods -- some for smaller farms, some on large-scale agriculture -- and no matter how much science and careful methodology I previously guess that they use, the articles surprise me anyway.

[puredemo]

I've just never heard of a farming school. Agricultural programs and departments, yes. Farming school, no.

It's a great idea in my opinion. Food prices are rising. Post-peak oil, local agriculture is going to become more and more important.

[Goladus]

Here's one I've heard about: http://www.cals.cornell.edu/

[puredemo]

That's a farming program inside a large university, not a farming school. Are there actual farming schools or does "farming school" just refer to an agriculture department?

[Vivtek]

What, you think agriculture is such a solved problem that people don't need to learn anything to do it?

[kragen]

And didn't I tell you just now that farming is the noblest art for this among other reasons, because it is the easiest to learn?

[Vivtek]

Easy for Socrates to say. He made his living sounding good. As you've readily demonstrated!

[ryanklee]

Made made his death out of it, too.

[puredemo]

Wow, lots of assumptions for a straightforward question. Was just curious to learn more about it.

[sitkack]

Don't mock this guy lest he get all agro on you.