Energy Flow through Agroecosystems (Farms)
This material was originally developed by
Spreadsheets Across the Curriculum as part of its collaboration with the
SERC Pedagogic Service.
Initial Publication Date: August 1, 2007
Summary
In this Spreadsheets across the Curriculum activity, students explore energy inputs and outputs in an agroecosystem. They build spreadsheets that allow them to complete unit conversions and calculate total inputs and outputs and output:input ratios. Students also create pie charts to visually represent and interpret data. This module allows students to practice calculating unit conversions and gain experience using proper significant figures and scientific notation.
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Learning Goals
Students will:
- Create spreadsheets to complete unit conversions.
- Examine the difference between direct and indirect values.
- Create a pie chart to visualize differences in orders of magnitude.
- Calculate energy output to input ratios.
- Understand how energy flows through agroecosystems and be able to recognize data needs for caluclating energy flow.
- Understand the relationship between energy flows and farm sustainability.
- Understand inputs and outputs of agroecosystems.
- Gain experience using Excel for simple calculations and graph creation.
- Become more experienced with unit conversions.
- Increase their familiarity with significant figures and scientific notation.
- Understand ratios.
Context for Use
This activity was designed for use in Ecological Agriculture, an upper-division undergraduate course.
Description and Teaching Materials
SSAC2005.S561.MR1.1_Student Version (PowerPoint 124kB Aug1 07)
This module is a PowerPoint presentation with embedded spreadsheets. If the embedded spreadsheets are not visible, save the PowerPoint file to a disk and open it from there.
This PowerPoint file is the student version of the module. An instructor version is available by request. The instructor version includes the completed spreadsheet. Send your request to Len Vacher (vacher@usf.edu) by filling out and submitting the Instructor Module Request Form.
Teaching Notes and Tips
This module is intended for use as a stand-alone resource. It has been used as a lab activity, with students finishing any remaining work as a homework assignment.
It is recommended that students have a simple, beginning exercise before completing this module.
It is recommended that students have a simple, beginning exercise before completing this module.
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Assessment
The last slides contain an assignment that can be used to examine student understanding and learning gains.