A common misconception in agriculture is that large scale farming is "bad." This article discusses farm size, conventional vs organic food production, sustainability, and various cultivation practices designed to protect and preserve the environment.
Give students a peek into the lives of the Heaton's — a cattle ranching family from Alton, Utah. Follow them on their 30-mile journey from Rush Meadow to Dixie National Forest and learn more about the challenges these hardworking cowboys face.
View this 17-minute video to learn about the origins of corn. Discover how the domestication of corn impacted society and what plant domestic corn originates from. This video supports lessons on the domestication of plants and genetic evolution.
This link highlights the growth and production of the cotton plant. Begin with a short video clip about the growth of cotton including its history with slaves. Continue by learning about the modern use of genetic engineering in the cotton industry today. Following the video you can learn where cotton is grown across the world and what technology is used to plant, harvest, and process it into fabric.
In this YouTube video, Paul Anderson gives a detailed explanation in addition to visuals for explaining the purpose of chloroplasts during photosynthesis in plants. He explains how chloroplast will use the energy from the sun to form the chemical compound called glucose. The video also displays the structure of chloroplast, a description of light reaction, and the Calvin Cycle.
"Super food" is a well-known term representing a food rich in nutrients. Did you know sauerkraut was a superfood on sailing ships in the 1500-1800s? Introduce or support a lesson on food preservation, food storage, or nutrients by teaching your students how fermented cabbage prevented sailors from coming down with scurvy on long voyages.
This TIME magazine article highlights the work and photography of Peter Menzel as he traveled the world documenting the food average families throughout the globe consumed in a typical week. Discover how culture, climate, economic status, food costs, and other factors impact the food a family consumes.
Both a book and a movie, Guns, Germs and Steel lays a foundation for understanding human history. Enter a 10,000 year journey through history and across every continent of the world to learn how and why human civilizations evolved from hunter-gatherers to a growing civilization and why some civilizations progressed faster than others. Learn how farming and the domestication of plants and animals impacted this evolution.
The Lexion 590R is the largest farm combine of its kind. Harvesting exponentially more and faster than hundreds of human laborers, see why this machine is at the top of its class. Use this three-minute video to give students an example of the importance of technology in agriculture.
C.J. Jackson is a young farmer whose family is forced to abandon their farm and seek a new life in California during the Dust Bowl. This book tells his story in journal form, beginning with an entry about being bit by a rattlesnake and following his family's trek across the country from Oklahoma to California. Use this story to give students a personal perspective on an important historical event that continues to affect the way agriculture is practiced today.
The global food system is balanced between the supply and demand of food and tethered to our environment. These high resolution PDFs demonstrate visually the complexity of agriculture. These maps highlight how the global food system is the balance between supply and demand of food as governed by geography and politics. These elements are divided into natural systems and human systems.
Learn all about a chick's life cycle in this book for young students. Simple text and clear pictures make it fun to learn about different chicken breeds, the parts of a chicken, how the chick embryo develops, and how a baby chick grows into a mature hen that can lay its own eggs.