Tagged soil

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AFNR natural resources

3 lessons, 8 files
How do we impact natural resources by our activities? This unit helps meet some of the AFNR curriculum standards for natural resources. Students will learn how to test texture and other physical characteristics of soil, conduct water quality tests, …
Video
Video

A student’s guide to careers in agronomy

Agronomy is key to helping produce more food for a growing world population. Learn about the educational path to this agriscience career and what an agronomist does. Do your interests fit with this field? Thanks to the Mississippi Soybean Promotion …
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Biochar: producing bioenergy from waste

1 lesson, 1 file
How can a waste stream become part of a cyclical system? Make biochar, a soil amendment, by making and using a model top light updraft (TLUD) pyrolysis kiln or oven.
article
article

Bioinformatics session at NSTA

GrowNextGen industry leader Zack Bateson presented a lesson on using bioinformatics in the classroom to about 30 people at the NSTA conference in National Harbor, Maryland. Bateson, lead research scientist at National Agricultural Genotyping Center, …
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Dinner and data and drones, oh my!: technology in agriculture

3 lessons, 5 files
What technologies are used to help farmers become more productive and more sustainable? Drones (or UAVs-unmanned aerial vehicles) are taking to the skies. What are they doing up there? What other technologies are there that help growers become more productive, yet more thoughtful about …
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Engineering solutions in agriculture

2 lessons, 2 files
How does modern agriculture use engineering to address soil compaction? Looking for an activity that combines robotics, coding, and engineering with a real life problem? This unit uses MakeBlock parts, Scratch programming, and modeling to help students design a solution …
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article

Getting to know the versatility of soybeans

By attending the Ohio Soybean Council-sponsored Ag Biotech Academy workshop, Jamie Brown was able to share information about agriculture, soybeans, and careers with 6th grade students at Miami East Junior High. Brown’s students completed the Global …
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Growing more food: biotechnology

3 lessons, 9 files
How will we feed 9 billion people? Grow soybeans using Round-Up Ready seeds to illustrate how biotechnology can be used as a tool to increase production. Introduce students to different options for growing soybeans, investigate …
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article

Healthy Soil Challenge training for soil sleuths

4-H representatives from 12 Ohio counties gathered at the Nationwide & Ohio Farm Bureau 4-H Center this Saturday for a special training session. “Healthy Soils C.S.I. Challenge” is this year’s 4-H Ag Innovators Experience, sponsored by Monsanto, …
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Healthy soils

1 lesson, 1 file
What makes soil healthy? What methods might farmers use to maintain healthy soil? “Soil” doesn’t just mean “dirt.” It is a mixture of minerals like rocks and clay, organic material like dead leaves, living organisms like worms, microbes, and insects, and even air and water. There …
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article

Layers of “soil” make learning tasty

Mary Wolf’s third grade class at General Rosecrans Elementary has been very busy learning about soil and soybeans. After a presentation on soil horizons, the students made their own with pudding, cookie crumbs, and gummy worms. Wolf said, “My …
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Managing nutrient and pesticide needs in agriculture

7 lessons, 12 files
Why do farmers spend time and money to apply chemicals to their fields? In this threaded PBL*, (an effort to integrate agricultural understandings into the normal sequence of an Environmental Science classroom) students will conduct several “close reads” (reading for …
Video
Video

Managing plant pathogens using integrated pest management (IPM)

Do you like to work outside? A Plant Pathology and Microbiology Scientist talks about scouting for pest problems in a soybean field. Thank you to PBS Learning Media for providing this video. Credit: This module was designed and produced by Iowa …
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Nitrogen fixation and legumes: say what?

2 lessons, 7 files
How do legumes fix nitrogen? If the atmosphere is about 80% Nitrogen (N2), but plants cannot use that form, how do they get nitrogen? In this unit, students plant and care for soybeans under one of five different …
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Oh soy good! Milk types and food security

6 lessons, 10 files
How might soymilk, and other types of milk, help ensure food security? Investigate various milk sources and their composition through core disciplines of Science, Math, Social Studies and Language Arts to discover the availability of milk types within multiple cultures …
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pH in soil

3 lessons, 5 files
What is the variability in pH of soils across a field? Soil tests show the pH and nutrient amounts in a field. Soil chemistry determines the amount of root growth, the amount of nutrients that can be held in the soil, and the ability of plants to take in …
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Smart farming: using data to make decisions

5 lessons, 27 files
What kind of data do farmers use to make decisions? Where does that data come from? Become a "farmer" on a journey from pre-planting to harvest to see what decisions farmers are making every year as they farm. Growers across the country are gaining access to more and more data about …
student research project
student research project

Soil compaction and fertilizer run-off in soybean crop

The purpose of conducting this experiment was to learn more information about the problem of fertilizer runoff and its relation to soil compaction as well as exploring possible solutions to both of these issues. A variety of research has been done …
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article

SOLE and Soybeans in Space

“How will we produce soybeans on Mars?” “How can we innovate correct ag practices to sustain life on other planets?” A unique workshop presented by the Ohio Soybean Council, GrowNextGen, and The Works, a children’s museum in Newark, focused on these …
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Stick a fork in it: biodegradable products

3 lessons, 2 files
Which biobased substrate will create a durable form of bio-plastic? Which biobased material has the least effect on the composition of compost and runoff through degradation? Compostable plastics are a new generation of plastics that are biodegradable through composting. They are derived generally from renewable raw materials like starch (e.g. corn, potato, tapioca etc), …
student research project
student research project

The effect of soil minerals on root nodulation

This project studied the effects of Phosphorus, Potassium, and Nitrogen on the nodule growth on the root system of a soybean plant. The objective was to compare the nodule population on the roots. This was done while also testing the soil in each …
student research project
student research project

The effect of soil on plant growth

Have you ever been curious if the type of soil used affects how plants grow? Five soybean seeds were planted 2.5 cm deep, in separate pots of each type of soil. After seeds were planted, all 10 plants were placed by a long window so that each …
student research project
student research project

The Effects of Exogenously Applied L-Tryptophan on the Nodulation and Overall Development of Soybeans Grown in Acidic Soil

Acidic soil severely inhibits legume nodulation and devastates crop yields worldwide. Among the many phytohormones that regulate nodulation, indole-3-acetic acid is known to improve the nodulation and stress tolerance between specific legumes and …
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Using ozobots to simulate agriculture technology

4 lessons, 7 files
How might we use robots to simulate agricultural technology? What role does computer science play in agriculture? The technology innovations in use in the agriculture industry have been touted as second only to those of the US military. What are these innovations? GPS guided tractors, follow-along equipment, …
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article

What does a soil scientist do?

In this video, Lydia Jennings shares her journey to become a soil microbiologist and how her research is part of her passion for land stewardship. Help your students learn about this STEM career pathway!
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What is Bioinformatics? It’s a BLAST

2 lessons, 3 files
How can we identify individual organisms in a complex mixture of DNA? What computer tools are needed to decode the source of a DNA sequence? Have you ever done a DNA extraction? Most DNA extractions are done with a known source and students can visualize DNA. The favorite items are strawberries or students’ own cheek cells. This unit …
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Where does our food come from, anyway? Sustainable ag systems

3 lessons, 7 files
How do growers’ decisions affect the sustainability of agricultural systems? Understand and appreciate food producers through this case study and determine what decisions must be made on a yearly, monthly, or daily basis to maintain an environmental system that will continue …