Curriculum
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Water quality and human impacts
Why is water quality important? How is water quality measured? The US EPA has set water quality standards in accordance with the Clean Water Act: Water quality standards are important because they help to protect and restore the quality of the Nation's surface …
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4-H aquaculture challenge
What is aquaculture? Why is it becoming a growing industry? Globally, fish consumption has nearly doubled in the last 40 years. At the same time wild fish capture has leveled off. This is due to decreasing wild stocks and high scrutiny of fishing practices. …
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Dinner and data and drones, oh my!: technology in agriculture
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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Making biodiesel from soybeans
How might we make and use renewable fuel? Make biodiesel and create a scale model of an anaerobic digester, while investigating bioenergy and how it is produced.
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Global trade in agriculture
Where did your food come from? How far did it travel? Many people are thinking about these questions prompted by the mantra “Buy Local.” But much of our food has been shipped by barge, ridden on rails and rolled on the road in trucks. Without …
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Soy fresh, soy clean: Using aseptic technique for food safety
How clean is your lab station? About 48 million people (1 in 6 Americans) get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die each year from foodborne diseases, according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and …
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High-oleic oil: What’s all the fuss?
How does chemical structure affect chemical performance? Trans fat is out, so back to the drawing board. In this unit, students will explore the chemical behavior of molecules related to the structure by 1) examining how the structure of high-oleic oil …
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AFNR natural resources
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, …
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Photoperiod: the floral initiator
What drives plants to flower and reproduce? In this lesson students will plant and care for soybeans under one of three different photoperiod regimes: First month: 16 hours; Second month: 14 hours; third month: 12 hours (control) 16 hours for …
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Nitrogen fixation and legumes: say what?
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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Barges, trains and trucks: Logistics and moving soybeans
Why is transportation for commodity crops so critical? Infrastructure is critical to the functions of the country, in particular the shipment of commodity crops such as soybeans. This unit introduces students to several types of infrastructure that are …
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AFNR food science
What is food science? We are bombarded by new foods every time we go into a grocery store or watch television. Where are all of these foods coming from? Food science is the answer. This AFNR unit introduces several …