Unit 3: Crops and Irrigation Patterns in the United States part of Water, Agriculture, Sustainability
Chris Sinton, Ithaca College
This unit is designed to allow students to quantitatively assess how much water is used for irrigating crops and how this varies across the United States. This unit also has students link water use to the economic ...

Unit 1: Introduction to Global Food Security part of The Wicked Problem of Global Food Security
Amy Potter, Armstrong State University
This introductory lesson will build the foundation for students to progress through the remaining units by defining food security and discussing the major factors contributing to food insecurity today (climate ...

Did Early Farmers Alter Climate? part of Teaching Activities
Sue Swanson, Beloit College
The overarching goal of this exercise is for students to explore the early anthropogenic hypothesis, which claims that early agriculture had a substantial impact on greenhouse gases and global climate thousands of ...

Unit 4: Case Study Analysis part of Mapping the Environment with Sensory Perception
Lisa Phillips, Texas Tech University; Kate Darby, Western Washington University; Michael Phillips, Illinois Valley Community College
In this unit, student groups will evaluate different environmental case studies to critically investigate qualitative and quantitative data analysis, collection, and inquiry. Students will begin to consider ...

Unit 3: Soil Investigation and Classification part of Soils, Systems, and Society
Jennifer Dechaine, Central Washington University; Kathryn Baldwin, Eastern Washington University; Rodger Hauge, American Geophysical Union; Gary Varrella, Washington State University-Spokane
In this unit, students work in small groups to collect and record data about soils using various soil testing and classification methods at a series of stations. The methods they use are relevant to the societal ...

Unit 1: Introduction to Soils and Society part of Soils, Systems, and Society
Kathryn Baldwin, Eastern Washington University; Jennifer Dechaine, Central Washington University; Rodger Hauge, American Geophysical Union; Gary Varrella, Washington State University-Spokane
In this unit, students engage in a scaffolded class discussion designed to encourage students to move from a broad focus on science relevancy to locally important societal issues relevant to soils. They then relate ...

Module 6: Crops part of Future of Food
Heather Karsten, Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus
This module introduces students to key features of crop plants. The first part explores how climate and soil influence human selection of annual and perennial plants and how plant life cycles contribute to soil ...

Exploring Climate Change Effects on Water Availability and Agriculture part of Curriculum for the Bioregion:Activities
Betsy Bancroft, Gonzaga University
This activity has students work together to summarize regional effects of climate change and other environmental issues, which a focus on how these issues may influence agriculture and water availability. Students present a region to the group and create a layperson summary of the effects of climate change and other environmental change on their region.

Unit 3: Natural and Agricultural Erosion Rates part of A Growing Concern
Sarah Fortner, Carleton College; Martha Murphy, Santa Rosa Junior College; Hannah Scherer, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ
Students will identify their perceptions of erosion by examining images of mountain and agricultural landscapes and discussing which environment is more erosive. They will use geospatial figures to compare erosion ...

Environmental Geochemistry Class Project part of Hydrogeology:Hydrogeology, Soils, Geochemistry 2013:Activities
Carey Gazis, Central Washington University
This is a inquiry-driven class research project on a local environmental geochemistry question that is accomplished during three-hour laboratory sessions each week. Students are divided into groups that will share ...