Sustainable Food Production

• Objectives

  Differentiate between the concepts of organic food production, local food production and sustainable food production.Identify local pood producers and ways in which the students might increase the amount of local foods in their diets.Explain how consuming local foods might be more sustainable, or not.

• Sustainable local food

  Read this article as an introduction to the subject.

• 1. Create a personal food journal. Monitor the things you eat during 3 days. The 3 days do not have to be consecutive, but they should be representative of a typical day in your diet.
  2. Create a master shopping list of all the items you would need to make what you ate in the 3 days of your food journal. What would it take to feed you? When you do this consider the recepies. For example if you ate Pizza, you need wheat flower, tomatoes, cheese, pepperoni etc. If you ate a Hamburger you will need beef for the paties, wheat for the bread, onions, lettuce, tomatos, eggs and olive oil for the mayonaise…. Get the picture?
  3. Now that you have a “Grocery List”. Use the internet, the phone book, your contacts in the local comunity, the grocery stores, whatever mean is at your disposal to identify local producers for the product you need. By local I am going to mean within 100 miles of ECSU. For example, you can identify a poultry farm in South Mills that sells organic eggs and chicken meat, or a farmer at a local farmers market that sells seasonal vegetables like cabbage or Collards.
  4. As you will have found from researching the articles i gave you and other information from the internet, local doesn’t mean sustainable. When possible make sure that the farming practices used to produce the items in your grocery list are actually sustainable.
  5. I am concious that not all items in the list will be found locally, so identify those and explain why do you think they are not available.
  6. Lastly identify 5 things you could do to increase sustainable farming practices in your community.
  7. Document all aspects of your investigation on a report. The report should include the individual food journal, the master grocery list. The sources for the items in the list you were able to find localy and the ones you were not. and a conclusion which should include the list of 5 things from step 6.

Your report should be done as a Word document, and should include the following components.

1. Title page name etc

2. Introduction – Develop an introduction that presents your investigation. You can use the questions from the case study as a guide. A good introduction should include background information on the topic, the definitions your reader will need to understand your report and a brief summary of what you are going to tell us in the body of the report.

3. Content – You can call this section content, or you can divide the section into several sections each with their own title, but in general the content sections of your report should contain the results of your investigations. In other words, the answers to the questions posted in your case study. Don’t limit yourself to answering each question with a sentence or two. The questions are realy just there to guide you and point you in the right direction. Make sure you investigate the topic and write an complete account of what you found. Feel free to include tables, figures or pictures, or any other visual aid you can embed in the word document.

4. Figures and Tables must be properly labled and numbered. In scientific reports, tables always should have a Table number and a title ABOVE the table ( for example Table1. Master list of groceries and where to buy them. Figures, however, should have a title and a number that appears UNDER the picture, and are usually accompanied by a short explanation of what is included. (for example;under a picture of a farm you would write Fig.1 – Owen Brothers Farm, South Mills, NC. This farms produces organic cage-free eggs and sells to the public at farmers markets in the area.). Figures and tables should be there for a reason, and should enhance the text of your report.

5. Conclusion – This is the section where you tell me your opinions about the things you discovered on your investigation. Its a good place to include some of the final questions from your instructions. The fact that these are your opinions however, doesn’t mean you can write anything you think off. Your opinions must be backed up by the facts you presented in your research.

6. References – Any scientific report has to be properly referenced. If you use somebody elses words (cut and paste) you should do so in quotations and you need to reference the source. the same is true if you use pictures or tables. DO NOT COPY AND PASTE LARGE SECTIONS OF YOUR REPORT!!!! this needs to be your own words. But quoting a source is a very appropriate use of your reference material. To write your references properly, follow the instructions given on the Reference section you’ll find here.

• 1. Identify the reasons a community needs energy sources at the family, neighborhood, institution and industry level.
  2. Identify how the current energy needs of the community are met. Are the energy sources currently in use clean? Renewable? Sustainable? Explain why or why not.
  3. Identify possible renewable, sustainable alternative energy sources that could supply the needs of the community.
  4. Discuss the environmental and economical impact of implementing renewable and sustainable energy practices.
• 1. Using the internet attempt to find what the avarage use of energy is for the median household in NC.
  2. What other energy needs will the community have? Think transportation of people and goods, think running of farm equipment and industrial machines, think about the energy needed to run hospitals, schools and other goverment fascilities, and use the internet to find out what is the energy need of a typical city like Elizabeth City in NC. if you research well a lot of this information is already out there, since goverment, cities and power companies regularly have to report this sort of data.
  3. Use the internet to identify the curent sources NC is using in order to obtain energy. Do we use hydroelectric? Do we burn Coal? Do we use Natural gas or Nuclear plants?
  4. Identify the possible renewable, sustainable energy sources that might work in the state of NC. Explain how these sources work and why are they considered sustainable.
  5. Lastly identify 5 things could do in order to increase the use of sustainable energy in NC.
  6. Document all these things you have found about renewable energies in a report.

  PART 2 section(new word document) Lab 6 – Climate Change Activity
  

  1. The students will search the internet for a Didactic Material that could be used to teach the class or lab about one aspect of Climate Change. A didactic Material can be a Video, a Video Lecture, a web page, and interactive activity or a virtual or on-line lab.
  2. Keep in mind that your audience is composed of students like you. Non-majors with little science background. This means you are targetting the general public, so beware of using materials that are too complicated, or require advanced knowledge in computer programing, math or science.
  3. Once the student has identified the Didactic Material they want to use, they should write a lesson plan.
  4. The lesson plan should include the following:
     • Title, name and date.
     • Identify the Didactic Material and give a link
     • What are the objectives of the lesson you will use this material for? Identify at least 2.
     • Describe the material you are presenting
     • How would you use it? How would you assess if the students achieved your objectives (test? quizz? report? lab worksheet?)
     • Write 5 questions you would use on a test for this material. 3 should be multiple choice and 2 should be essay questions.
     • What do you expect would be the reaction of the class if you used the material in a lesson?