K20 / Environmental and agricultural Science, 9-12 Kristi Adams

Southern Great Plains

Introduction:

This lesson is intended to give students an understanding of how the relationship between agricultural practice and climate variability is cyclic. Humans can impact the climate in a positive way through sustainable practices. It is suggested to complete this lesson fully in order to help students appreciate the positive roles of agricultural practice and human impact on climate variability. This lesson is not intended to give students’ concrete concepts/ideas or even cause/effect relationships but rather encourage them to think about existing data on climate and greenhouse gases, current agricultural practices, and the relationships these have with each other and how this may impact student lives.

Summary:

By the end of this lesson students will be able to discuss the relationship between agriculture and climatology. They will use data to determine drought status of the Southern Great Plains and theywill investigate how various greenhouse gases impact temperature by analyzing and graphing data collected through a simulation activity. Students apply knowledge from the lesson to make mitigation decisions for 400 acres of land located in the Southern Great Plains.

Focus Oklahoma Science Standards:

HW-ESS3-1: Construct an explanation based on evidence for how the availability of natural resources, occurrence of natural hazards, and changes in climate have influenced human activity.

HS-ESS3-4: Evaluate or refine a technological solution that reduces the impacts of human activities on natural systems.

Essential Question:How is climate variability related to agriculture?

Lesson Snapshot

1. Engage: Students will watch short video describing flux towers and discuss how data collected may be used in agriculture and climatology.

2. Explore: Students will use a simulation to explore the relationship between temperature and greenhouse gases. In addition, they will determine whether or not the Southern Great Plains region is experiencing drought conditions using qualitative and quantitative information.

3. Explain: Students will identify carbon dioxide, methane,nitrous oxide emission sources and the relationship these emissions have to the amount of water available for agriculture.

4. Extend/Expand:Students will apply information about climate variability and agriculture to plan land usage of 400 acres with a low ecological and climatological impact.

5. Evaluate:Students will devise a mitigation strategy to further decrease ecological and climatological impact based on feedback. Students will prepare a public service announcement to submit to the USDA GrazingCap AFRI project that discusses how agriculture and climate variability affect their lives.

1
K20 / Environmental and agricultural Science, 9-12 Kristi Adams

Acknowledgement:

Funding provided by USDA to Project No. 2012-02355 through the National Institute for Food and Agriculture's Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, Regional Approaches for Adaptation to and Mitigation of Climate Variability and Change.

Lesson Preparation or Notes To Teacher:

Students should have basic familiarity with the carbon cycle, water cycle, and nitrogen cycle.

The bit.ly link below has all of the articles and websites available for students to access at home or school for the extend (fact sheets) and the evaluate (mitigation) portions of this lesson.

The bit.ly link below has everything the teacher needs for this lesson. This includes student handouts, answer keys for student handouts, and all video links as referenced in the lesson.

Materials:

Computer access for simulation activity – one computer per group

Graph paper – 3 per group

SGP engage video

A Climate Minute - The Greenhouse Effect (1min21sec):

Allan Savory: How to green the world's deserts and reverse climate change (22min):

SGP info packet 1 – one per group

GHG PhET simulation handout – one per student

Oklahoma fact sheets – one set per group

Butcher paper for students to make posters

Feedback cards - make several copies and possibly laminate or put on card stock for future use

Lesson Procedures:

Engage:

The intent of this section is to prompt student thinking about scientific instrumentation and data needed to study climate variability and how climate variability may affect agriculture.

  • Begin the lesson by sharing with students the essential question of this lessonand asking them to think to themselves about the question: How is climate variability related to agriculture?
  • Ask students to get out a piece of paper and answer the following question: what role does agriculture play in your life?
  • Sample Student Responses:
  • Food
  • medicines
  • cosmetics
  • clothing
  • Ask students to work with a partner and to brainstorm additional answers. Have them record these on their paper. Next ask them to join with another group and add to their list. Call on a few students to share their answers.
  • Have the students follow the same method with the next question: What are some factors you would need to consider if you were given a chance to operate a farm?
  • Sample Student Responses:
  • water availability
  • temperature
  • pollution
  • soil
  • type of plants and animals that thrive in the region
  • After this short discussion, preface the video by sharing the following information with the class.

Agriculture is the art and science of raising livestock and crops. A team of Southern Great Plains scientists and educators will receive $9.6 million over five years to improve understanding of the vulnerability and resilience of beef production in an environment of increased climate variability, dynamic land-use and fluctuating markets. This lesson is a part of these efforts and you will be providing this team with additional data and insights through your participation in this lesson. AFRI's (agriculture and food research initiative) Climate Variability and Change challenge area is focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing carbon sequestration in agricultural and forest production systems and preparing the nation's agriculture and forests to adapt to changing climates. The team is comprised of 32 scientists from Oklahoma State University, the University of Oklahoma, Kansas State University, Tarleton State University, the Samuel R. Noble Foundation and U.S. Department of Agriculture - Agricultural Research Service laboratories in El Reno, Oklahoma, and Bushland, Texas.
“Our team’s goal is to safeguard and promote regional beef production while mitigating the environmental footprint of agriculture,” said Dave Engle of OSU’s Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources. “The project also includes education and Extension components to train the next generation of producers and researchers in addressing climatic effects on beef cattle.” The video you are about to watch describes an instrument called the flux tower, built and maintained by research scientists at the University of Oklahoma. Pradeep Waddle is one of the research scientists participating in the USDA project described earlier. As you watch the video think about “how agriculture can use the data from the flux tower?”

  • Show students the SGP video. You can access the video at:

[Note: You may want to show the video a couple of times or write on the board what the flux tower measures: heat, carbon dioxide, water levels, methane emissions and other trace gases between the surface of the land and the atmosphere.]

  • Sample Student Responses:
  • Information from the flux tower such as water can help people make decisions about how much water they will need to supply for proper growth of crops.
  • The data can help land-owners determine how their activities might be affecting the availability and amount of methane, carbon, and nitrogen for their region.
  • The data may help people predict future weather patterns based on the climate of their region.
  • The data can help people identify whether or not there are drought conditions in the region.

Explore:

There are two main goals of this section. The first goal is for students to explore the relationship between temperature and various greenhouse gases, which is direct. The second goal is for students to determine whether or not the Southern Great Plains is experiencing a drought. This section is not prescriptive and students may have multiple ideas about how temperature, greenhouse gases (GHG), drought, and agriculture are related. This is a complex, dynamic system and even experts in these areas struggle with analyzing the relationship between climate variability and agriculture.

Part 1

A video of the simulation is provided. The video shows step-by-step what the students will be doing during the simulation. You can access the video at:

  • Put students in groups of two or three and give them the GHG simulation handout. The packet has students go through a series of simulations using PhET, Make sure each group has at least three sheets of graph paper.

[Note: This can be done as a whole-class activity if there is only one computer. If there is no availability to computers then copy the data from the teacher’s guide and have students complete only part 4.]

Part 2

  • Give students the SGP info packet 1 and allow them time to look at each piece of evidence.
  • Give students a Claim-Evidence-Reasoning (C-E-R) page and have them complete this task individually.
  • Have groups (3 or 4 students in each group) come together to discuss their responses to: simulation handout, graphs, and C-E-R page. Allow students time to revise their answers. Students will re-visit their C-E-R at the end of the lesson.

[Note: There is a teacher’s guide with answers to the GHG simulation handout and sample graphs. There is also a teacher’s guide for the C-E-R handout.]

Explain:

So far students have explored how GHG affect temperature and how temperature has changed with time. They have also made a claim supported by evidence and reasoning about the drought status of the Southern Great Plains. They have yet to discuss sources of GHG, which is important when considering the essential question and thinking about mitigation strategies for sustainable agricultural practices.

  • Show students the video titled: A Climate Minute –The Greenhouse Effect,
  • Have students listen for answers to the following questions: What has contributed to increases in nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide, and methane? How is water affected?

[Note: It is suggested to write these questions down and have them visible while the students are watching the video or have the students write the questions on their own paper and record their answers as they watch the video.]

  • Conduct a class discussion over the video questions stated above.
  • Sample Student Responses:
  • What has contributed to increases in nitrous oxide? fertilizeruse (18%)
  • What has contributed to increases in carbon dioxide? fossil fuel combustion (39%)
  • What has contributed to increases in methane? There is no direct answer given but it has increased by 148%. A possible cause could be increases in the number of grazing animals. Methane is also a product of both industrial and natural processes.
  • How is water affected? Water is affected because of the greenhouse gas effect. When there are increases in these gases more heat is trapped by the atmosphere which leads to more water evaporation and so there is less usable water on the land.
  • Ask students to write a 50 word GIST statement using the following prompt: I think the drought in the Southern Great Plains is due to …. A GIST statement asks students to summarize their understanding of a given topic in a concise manner.
  • Have studentsshare their GIST statement.
  • Help the class to categorize the responses. Sample categories may include: high temperature, dry climate, increased CO2, increased N2O, increased CH4, decreased amount of water, combinations of all of these factors, too many people, not enough trees. Post the categories and GIST statements together in the classroom as they will re-visit these GIST statements at the end of the lesson.

Extend/Expand:

This section provides students an opportunity to strategically plan how they would utilize 400 acres of land. The goal is to familiarize students with animals and crops common to the Southern Great Plains. They are also challenged to think about how to plan a farm that is sustainable.

  • Working in small groups (these can be the same groups or new groups), tell students they have been given 400 acres of land in NW Oklahoma.Explain to them that their task is to demonstrate how they will manage the land for minimal ecological and climatological impact.
  • Give each group a set of fact sheetsabout Oklahoma to help them decide how they are going to use their land or have them access the articles using the bit.ly link.
  • Have students use an analytic reading tool such as “Thinking Notes” to help them focus their reading and brainstorm ideas for their land usage. “Thinking Notes” is a strategy in which students take notes on post-its (or in the margins) of the text. This strategy is useful when reading from a text that students’ can’t directly write on.

[Note: As students work on their plan you may want to interject leading questions to help them think deeper about this complex system. Here are a few suggestions for leading questions: How are you going to supply water? Do you need shade? What vehicles/tools do you plan to use? Is there a way you can recycle? What do you plan on feeding to the animals? How do you know about your soil? Is soil composition important?]

  • Have students prepare a visual representation of the plans for their land. The fact sheets contain pictures that they may choose to cut out and use for their visual. Allow students to use technology or poster paper for their visual.
  • Have each group present the visual of their plan to the class.

Evaluate:

There are three parts to this section. The first part is intended for students to think about the sources of GHG from earlier in the lesson and come up with a mitigation strategy based on feedback. It is important you tell students that you like the plans they came up with but conditions have changed and if they want to keep sustainable land then they must mitigate due to these conditions. Agriculture is dynamic and this activity models a complex, dynamic system. The second part is for students to watch a video by Allan Savory about the positive role humans can have on climate variability. The third part of this lesson is intended for students to reflect and change their prior ideas (C-E-R and GIST). They will also prepare a public service announcement (PSA) that can be sent to the research team described earlier in the lesson

Give each group a feedback card about their land.

[Note: The feedback cards can be given randomly to groups or you can select one or more cards based on what you have observed students planning.]

Part 1

  • Instruct students to decide upon a mitigation (act of reducing severity) strategy to either reduce nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide, or methane emissions. Provide students access to a computer for additional research. In the resources section there are a few websites listed that may be helpful, additional articles regarding mitigation can be accessed using the bit.ly link.
  • Have each group present to the class and explain how their poster represents their 400 acres of land and their solution to the feedback card they received.

Part 2

  • End the lesson by showing students the video titled: Allan Savory: How to green the world's deserts and reverse climate change,
  • Give students time to re-visit and change their C-E-R and GIST statements from earlier in the lesson. Ask them to keep in mind the essential question: How is climate variability related to agriculture?

Part 3

  • Have students work in groups to prepare a 90 second public service announcement that addresses the question:How does the relationship between climate variability and agriculture impact my life? This is the way students can contribute to the current work of science research in the Southern Great Plains. If possible videotape each PSAand send to:

If you are not sure how to send a video file then email Dan Hounslow for additional instructions.

1
K20 / Environmental and agricultural Science, 9-12 Kristi Adams

Differentiations: The teacher could ask each group tocome up with mitigation strategies for all feedback cards. The extend portion can be done as a class project with small groups planning for only portions of the land, for example: poultry group, crop group, porcine group, etc.. Presentations can be done using computers or students can orally present the information.

Authentic Strategies

Higher Order Thinking-Students relate basic information about various earth cycles to human impact on agriculture and how GHG contribute to climate variability.