Goals and Learning Objectives

Goals

• Describe key features of categories of crop plants and how they are adapted to environmental and ecological factors.
• Explain how soil and climatic features determine what crops can be produced in a location, and how humans may alter an environment for crop production.
• Classify environments as high or low resource environments and interpret how both environmental and socio-economic factors contribute to crop plant selection (coupled human-nature systems); and the pros and cons of the cultivation of various crop types.

Learning Objectives

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Define annual and perennial crops and list some examples of annual and perennial crops.
• Distinguish and explain why annual or perennial crops are cultivated in high resource or resource-limited environments.
• Explain some ways that farmers alter the environment to produce annual or perennial crops.
• Name some major crop plant families with some example crops.
• Explain the nutrient significance of legumes.
• Describe key plant physiological processes and how climate change may influence crop plant growth and yield.
• Classify major crop plants into types including plant families, temperature adaptation, and photosynthetic pathways.
• Formulate an explanation of the advantages and disadvantages of producing annual and perennial crops.
• Interpret what environmental, ecological, and socioeconomic factors influence what crops farmers produce.
• Distinguish some environmental, ecological and socioeconomic advantages and disadvantages of producing types of crops.