After exploring the science of energy and energy conversion, students will evaluate some environmental impacts of hog farming and explore technologies that minimize negative human impact by creating biogas energy from animal waste.
Students identify technologies that have changed the way humans affect the inheritance of desired traits in organisms; compare and contrast selective breeding methods to bioengineering techniques; and analyze data to determine the best solution for cultivating desired traits in organisms.
Explore six scientific processes that can be used in plant breeding to modify the genotype of a plant in the pursuit of desired characteristics.
Students will explore strategies that can decrease food waste at home and school, design solutions for schoolwide food waste reduction efforts, and participate in food waste challenges that encourage sustainable shopping, correct food storage practices, and meal planning.
Students discover that topsoil is a nonrenewable resource and use an apple to represent how Earth’s land resources are used. Through critical thinking, students study agricultural land use and consider the sustainability of current land use practices including the use of land to feed and graze livestock animals.
While many view bioengineered crops (GMOs) as a promising innovation, there is controversy about their use. This lesson provides students with a brief overview of the technology, equipping them with the ability to evaluate the social, environmental, and economic arguments for and against bioengineered crops (GMOs). This lesson covers a socioscientific issue and aims to provide students with tools to evaluate science within the context of social and economic points of view.
Through a series of activities, students explore fermentation and ethanol production, observe the role of enzymes in fermentation, analyze nutrient values of dent corn, and discover how biofuels are made from plant oils.
Students will explore the origins of food, describe how food waste affects natural resources and the environment, and identify potential solutions to mitigate food waste’s carbon footprint.
Explore concepts of sustainability by evaluating the water footprint (WF) of food. Students are introduced to irrigation practices throughout the world, consumptive and non-consumptive water use, and investigate the water requirements for various food crops.
Students will view the 2016 documentary Food Evolution to evaluate the polarized debate surrounding bioengineering (GMOs). In this film director, Scott Hamilton Kennedy travels from Hawaiian papaya groves to Ugandan banana farms, to cornfields in Iowa to document how agricultural technology can be used in such varied crop settings. This lesson covers a socioscientific issue and aims to provide students with tools to evaluate science within the context of social and economic points of view.
This lesson explores common biotechnology methods and their applications in agricultural sciences. Students will examine DNA analysis techniques, become familiar with the process of polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and evaluate methods of DNA analysis as they learn how the biological techniques can be used in the process of developing specific traits within a crop.
In this lesson, students learn the chemistry and composition of milk, identify the difference between a monosaccharide and disaccharide, and carry out a laboratory activity testing the effect of the enzyme lactase on various milks.