PDS AP Environmental Science 5th Period 2011-12

For the first two action-packed days following our return from the R&R of Spring Break, the focus of our in-class discussion in APES was Water Resource Issues. In nearly ninety minutes of never-dull, thoroughly engaging lecture and discussion, we covered, in brief, what our freshwater resources are, why our society experiences freshwater shortages, what solutions [...]

Kinda weird to discuss fishing/aquaculture in an agriculture unit? Well, we do get some calories from the water so yes! Today we watched a good bit of the PBS documentary Empty Oceans, Empty Nets. Feel free to click around the movie web site if you want want to explore the issues further. What were the [...]

Hey, I took over some scribe duties since it was so close to the test. While King Corn focused on industrialized corn crop production and the many issues it produces, the movie also touches on problems created when we feed all that corn to cows (who did not evolved to eat it) in industrial feedlots [...]

Good soil is key for good crops, as it provides plants with nutrients, moisture control, and a stable foundation so that they can grow. However, in a “don’t bite the hand that feeds you” sort of way, both plants and our method of farming them damage, or degrade, the soil that is so necessary for [...]

Alum Richard Gee (’10) recently sent me this link to a The Economist article and map about which countries are growning genetically modified crops. I wish we had more time to spend on GMOs, but it was not meant to be this year. I’m not too concerned for you all on the AP exam as [...]

If you missed last Thursday and/or Friday, we finished watching King Corn. To recap, two Yale graduates made a documentary released in 2007 about growing an acre of corn in Iowa using methods of industrialized agriculture. You can borrow the DVD from me, or watch it on hulu. We took a few moments to review [...]

Today, we were introduced to food production. We began the class by looking at pictures from the book, Hungry Planet. The pictures showed what a typical family from a certain country would eat or drink in a week. Below, Ecuador is pictured. Ecuador is interesting because, as one can tell from the picture, there is little [...]