Curriculum

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…

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.…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

How do we develop and manage plant systems? Each plant is classified according to broad categories based on characteristics they share. New DNA technology has allowed us to be more specific in determining the “relatives” of plants. This…