Educational Model

The instruction of our students is guided by EARTH’s Educational Model, comprised of five components: our institutional mission, our graduate profile, our educational principles, our teaching and learning processes, and our curricular structure.

To fulfill our mission, we developed an educational model based on general skills and the holistic, humanistic, and social learning of the students. For four years, students work to develop technical competences applicable to agricultural and natural resources management, leadership and entrepreneurial skills, social and environmental responsibility, and the strengthening of their values. After four years, EARTH grants the Agricultural Engineering title with a degree in Agricultural Sciences.

EARTH Graduate Profile

The profile of the EARTH graduate describes the knowledge, abilities, capacities, and attitudes that define the graduates’ competencies, determining the direction of the teaching-learning process. Students develop these competencies during their four years at the University and apply them throughout their lives.

Exercises leadership
Behaves in accordance with EARTH values and principles
Is sensitive and committed to solving social and environmental problems
Communicates effectively
Builds effective interpersonal relationships and teamwork
Has a commitment to lifelong learning
Solves problems in a structured way
Has a solid technical foundation
Possesses managerial and entrepreneurial capacity
Works for the sustainable development & management of agriculture & natural resources
Applies science and technology

Educational Principles

At EARTH, the process of educating students is based on three educational principles:

Student-centered Learning

At EARTH, students, as individuals or in a group, explore problems and become active participants instead of passive receivers of knowledge. They learn to solve problems and to reach conclusions through reflection and structured value judgements, all while building their critical reasoning skills. In student-centered learning, the professor focuses on the design and application of the processes that enable students to play an active role in their own learning, taking into consideration each students’ learning style. This way, the professor leaves behind the traditional role of information carrier and conveyor.

Learning-by-Doing

Learning-by-Doing provides students opportunities to build their knowledge base and develop skills that allow for an immediate and relevant meaning to what they have learned, in a predesigned environment. Thus, at EARTH, professors enable the learning-induction process through students’ lived experiences and reflection on such experiences. They encourage critical analysis to teach them to use individual criteria, which means judging, assessing, and relying solely on one’s own ideas to have a more reflective way of thinking towards others and themselves. This guarantees the understanding of phenomena that may occur during the students’ personal growth, thereby inducing the students’ quest and understanding of creative solutions.

Learning by Living Together

Learning by Living Together focuses on the learning process through the interaction and dialogue between individuals, the promotion of tolerance, acceptance of differences, understanding, having empathy and mutual respect. It is based on the idea that the social environment and interpersonal relationships are fundamental for the integral development of people. Through the experience of living together, such as working in teams, resolving conflicts, listening and understanding different perspectives, expressing their positions, students learn social, communicative and emotional skills. Learning by living together fosters tolerance, collaboration, solidarity and the ability to adapt to different contexts, preparing students to be responsible citizens committed to society.

Formative Areas

The competencies in the EARTH Graduate Profile can be grouped into four educational areas: technical and scientific know-how, development of social and environmental conscience and commitment, personal development of attitudes and values, and entrepreneurship. These areas are closely interrelated and are the structural backbone of the curriculum.

Technical and scientific know-how

This area comprises all the knowledge, abilities, and skills that will make the EARTH graduate a competent professional in the technical areas required to work in sustainable agriculture and adequately manage natural resources. This area materializes in the curriculum mainly through the courses included in the syllabus.

Development of social and environmental conscience and commitment

This area is aimed at focusing education on social and environmental responsibility towards their community and surroundings. Thus, leadership abilities for positive change are strengthened. This aspect materializes both in the classroom and in the field, in student participation and engagement in experience-building activities, while conducting social development projects in their communities, and with different co-curricular and other institutional activities, programs, and projects, such as volunteering in local and regional projects.

Development of personal attitudes and values

This area is the development of intra- and interpersonal skills guiding students to become effective leaders. Among these competencies are self-awareness, empathy, respect towards others and towards different ideas, teamwork, effective communication, and becoming an autonomous learner for the rest of their lives. This area also includes the understanding and practice of institutional values and attitudes driving and supporting human actions to promote dialogue, peace, and understanding among people.

This is all materialized mainly by taking advantage of dialogue opportunities and through participative activities designed to induce reflection, based on the experienceof spending four years in a diverse and multicultural environment. This is also materialized in the syllabus, through those courses in which students deliberately learn ways to develop their intra- and interpersonal competencies.

Entrepreneurship

In this area the student develops competencies as an entrepreneur, able to proactively generate development opportunities while seeking solutions to actual problems. Therefore, the student develops the ability to assess, plan, organize, manage, and execute a business project. During the first three years of their career, students set the required know-how in motion to create and manage a business. They learn to make decisions and take risks to create products and provide services based on social and environmental responsibility.

Curricular Structure

The structure comprises the syllabus and all the activities, both formal and informal, linked to the formation of our students. One of EARTH’s strengths is having an inverse curriculum in which students begin their studies with a systemic approach on agricultural production and natural resources management. As their learning progresses, they focus on the details of production systems and how to manage natural resources. With the inverse curriculum approach, students live and experience the reality of agricultural production from the technical, social, environmental, and business perspectives right from the start of their studies, thus facilitating the construction of their learning process.

The syllabus has different competency-linked intentions in each year:

Holistic Vision (First year)

Holistic, global, and systemic vision of agriculture and natural resources, entrepreneurial thinking, base agricultural communication, and formation.

Sustainable Management (Second year)

Sustainable production management, entrepreneurship, and interactions with the community.

Social Commitment (Third year)

Competency integration and application, sharing knowledge with the community, and social awareness and commitment development.

Project Leadership (Fourth year)

Leadership in projects, application of technology, and production of knowledge with a global vision of agriculture and natural resources, as well as professional independence.

Spanish Program

Non-Spanish speaking students go through the Spanish-language and Cultural Immersion Program. The program is for our accepted students who come from communities in African and Caribbean countries and don’t speak Spanish. Their new language skills are essential, as our courses are mainly conducted in Spanish. This additional skill also enhances their professional profile after they leave EARTH.

At the program’s start, students participate in a 20-week intensive phase consisting of four modules: Spanish, Multicultural Immersion, a Psychoeducational evaluation, and Math skills.

In the Spanish Module, students take classes 20 hours per week, complemented with informative and work experience visits to EARTH’s academic farms for animal production, crops, organic production systems, and peri-urban agriculture. They also visit the water, soil, and natural sciences laboratories, the Center for Research and Development of Renewable Energies, and other academic spaces at EARTH University. Students study and develop the target language competencies for levels A1, A2, and B1 through these classes based on EARTH’s pillars.

Once these students begin their regular University studies, they continue taking Spanish-language classes and workshops during the first two quarters of their first year.

Community Development Program

EARTH students rotate through six experiential learning scenarios in their first and second years, in which they work on agricultural and rural development projects led by fourth-year students. One of these scenarios is the Community Development Program (CDP), geared toward mobilizing change for rural sustainability.

The Community Development Program covers three strategic areas:

Sustainable Production: Promotes training in good agricultural, environmental and productive practices. Both students and hosts learn about the proper management of natural resources and productive inputs. This axis is fundamental for promoting a sustainable local economy that adapts to, respects and protects the environment. Sustainable agricultural processes that can lead the community to optimal levels of carbon neutrality are chosen.

Social-Organizational: It is based on the construction of networks through strategic alliances that allow the sharing of knowledge related to development in the communities in which it has an impact. This contributes to the strengthening of community organizational management and promotes the possibility of working through projects related to citizen participation as a transforming entity. It also seeks to empower young people and promote gender equity within the communities, creating a more inclusive and participatory environment.

Entrepreneurship and Value Added: Promotes entrepreneurial skills in producers, helping them to make informed financial decisions based on a reliable economic structure; the use of accounting records, cost structures, profit margins and break-even points are some of the tools taught and reinforced to improve decision making. The focus is on developing sustainable and socially responsible microenterprises that can contribute to the local economy in the long term.

Accreditation

The Licenciatura degree (between a bachelor’s and a master’s degree) in Agricultural Sciences offered at EARTH University was officially accredited by the Costa Rican Higher Education Accreditation System (SINAES in Spanish) on November 2, 2006. Our degree has maintained its official accreditation uninterruptedly. By agreement of the highest body of SINAES, the degree was revalidated in 2010 and 2017, and according to an agreement taken by the National Accreditation Council on March 29, 2022, in its session 1572, the official accreditation is extended until 2026.