Mar 23 2012
Monday in class, we began to discuss water shortages and solutions. We came up with four causes of water shortages: 1. Dry Climate – Examples would be found in different regions, such as the Desert, Tundra, or Chaparral. These areas tend to have drier climates, which also makes them have less of a water supply in [...]
Mar 06 2012
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 [...]
Mar 06 2012
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 [...]
Mar 05 2012
While we learned that the soil has 5 horizons (layers), we also learned that the second (A) horizon is the most important because it is the horizon where plants take root. This horizon is referred to as TOPSOIL, and is the main focus for farmers and anyone else trying to make a [...]
Feb 28 2012
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 [...]
Feb 26 2012
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 [...]
Feb 21 2012
Today in class 2/21, we began the next unit on food production and soils. We began class by looking at The Hungry Planet: What the World Eats and comparing pictures of what families (around 5 people) ate over a week period. We compared what the families ate and the US dollars that would be spent [...]
