Spice of Life Test 3 Review Questions, Fall 2009
I. Be able to define what sustainable agriculture is, and to discuss its social, economic and environmental aspects.
2. How do sustainable agricultural practices help the environment?
3. What are greenhouse gases and what agricultural practices contribute to their production?
4. What are dead zones? How do some common cattle and crop-raising practices cause them?
5. Be able to discuss modern feedlot practices used to raise beef cattle, including feed, feed additives, and the structure of ‘typical’ feedlots.
6. How do modern feedlot practices benefit farmers and consumers worldwide?
7. Why are hormones fed to cattle in feedlots? What is dangerous about this practice?
8. Why are antibiotics fed to cattle in feedlots? What is dangerous about this practice?
9. Why is maintaining biodiversity important?
10. Discuss how cattle and cattle products are distributed in modern agriculture. How does this process damage the environment?
11. Lets say that Susquehanna University decides to purchase and use only grass-fed, organic cattle. Why might many students complain about the taste of their hamburgers as a result of this change? What would you say to try to convince them that this change is a good one or a bad one? (be able to pick and defend a side to this argument).
12. If your beef has an organic sticker on its shrink-wrapping, what do you know about its production? What are some misconceptions that people have about organic meat that might NOT be true?
13. Be able to discuss a ‘typical’ rice farm, and to explain why traditional rice farming practices are not particularly sustainable.
14. Be able to discuss a ‘typical’ corn farm, and to explain why traditional corn farming practices are not particularly sustainable.
15. Be able to discuss how fish and rice farming can be combined to improve sustainability of both types of agriculture.
16. What is SRI? What are the benefits of using SRI in terms of crop yield, crop health and sustainability?
17. Be able to discuss two methods used to try to make corn agriculture more sustainable.
18. Why is it a good idea to buy locally and seasonally whenever possible?
19. Now refer to the video that you saw in class that discussed the Sunripe Organic Farm in Kenya. ( How does this farm contribute to sustainability in Kenya and worldwide? (Be sure to discuss the social, economic and environmental issues).
20. Compare and contrast the benefits of buying only locally with buying products from sustainable farms such as the Sunripe Organic farm in Kenya. If you were given the choice, would you buy from Sunripe, or would you buy only locally? Justify your choice.
21. In your GMO experiments, how did the agarose gels allow you to determine if your samples were genetically modified or not?
22. Be able to give the complementary strand for the following DNA sequence, and to design 10 bp long DNA primers to amplify the entire length.
5’-GAATAGTCGTCCATGGCATTCGAGACTTGGACCCTGGGTCCATGCACCATGTT-3’
23. Be able to discuss what hard flour is, and to give an example.
24. Based on the following picture of grain, be able to label the endosperm, bran and germ.
25. What is a complete protein, and what foods do you combine with grains to make one?
26. Which part of a cereal grain has the most proteins? Vitamins? Starch? Fiber?
27. What is enriched flour, and what is it enriched with?