Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

30 minutes

Part A: A sustainable food future

30 minutes

Part B: Diamond ranking activity

50 minutes

Part C: Making a food map

10 minutes

Reflection

Learning intentions:

Students will...

understand some of the features of sustainable agriculture
be able to do a geographical inquiry in which they learn about one food producer
understand how food producers can contribute to a sustainable food future

Success criteria:

Students can...

define sustainable agriculture and food security in their own words
critically evaluate different features of sustainable agriculture and rank their perceived importance to a sustainable food future
work collaboratively to identify a topic for investigation and undertake an inquiry
use geographical tools such as maps, statistics, diagrams and photographs to summarise geographical information
make a judgement (assessment) about the role of a food producer in creating a sustainable food future
create digital content for a class food map

Teacher preparation:

For the Diamond Ranking Activity, you will need to create six sets of nine cards (postcard size). The nine cards in each set will each have one of the common features of sustainable agriculture, listed below, printed on them:

Reduce or eliminate chemical use
Be pollinator friendly
Maintain soil health
Conserve water
Engage with the community
Reduce food waste
Encourage biodiversity
Produce nutritious, safe food
Uphold animal welfare

Create an interactive, shareable map by making a free account with Padlet. Select 'Make a Padlet' and create a 'Canvas' style Padlet. Open a new tab to Google Maps. Zoom out until your State is in focus and take a screenshot. Navigate back to your Padlet and press 'more' under 'wallpapers', followed by 'add your own'. Now upload the screenshot of your map and press 'save'. Press the share button in the top right-hand side of the screen, followed by 'share/export/embed'. Copy the URL to your new interactive map and open a URL shortener in a new tab. Paste the URL to your interactive map into the field and press 'Shorten URL'. Copy this short URL and bring it to class.

This is not a definitive list of the features of sustainable agriculture. Teachers are encouraged to alter the list based on relevant current news topics about agriculture, issues that may be important to your local area or features that better suit students' previous learning.

To challenge students, use more than nine features.

Create a large A4 sized set of the same cards or a digital set that can be displayed and manipulated on a classroom board or screen.

Part A: A sustainable food future

Step 1

Explain to students that as we approach the year 2050 it is estimated that the world's population will reach 9.7 billion people. Although this seems a long way away, it is within students' lifetime. You may encourage students to roughly calculate what their age would be in 2050. Because of this huge population increase we need to be smart about how we use resources today, to make sure they are available in abundance in future years. This concept of conserving today to prepare for tomorrow is often known as sustainability.

Step 2

Invite students to think about their environmental footprint. Encourage them to think through a typical day and all the activities that make an impact on the environment. Now, ask the class to suggest which activities they think have the biggest environmental impact. You may kick this off by suggesting 'food consumption'. List students' suggestions on the board and invite the class to vote, by a show of hands, which activity they think has the biggest environmental impact.

Inform the class that it is believed that the food that we eat is the largest part of our individual environmental footprint. For example, food is responsible for almost a third of greenhouse emissions. So, the good news is if we want to be more sustainable, we can all play a part by making smart food choices and supporting sustainable agriculture. Professor Bill Bellotti believes that supporting sustainable agriculture can not only help our environment but also improve public health – it a win-win situation!

Step 3

Inform the class that sustainable agriculture is complex and there is no one way to sustainably produce food; however, there are some features of sustainable agriculture that are common. Write the following list on the board and explain that these are not the only features of sustainable agriculture, but they are a great place to start learning about this subject:

Reduce or eliminate chemical use
Be pollinator friendly
Maintain soil health
Conserve water
Engage with the community
Reduce food waste
Encourage biodiversity
Produce nutritious, safe food
Uphold animal welfare

Invite students to form nine groups and allocate each group a feature from the list.

Step 4

Challenge groups to investigate their chosen feature by firstly completing the sentence 'What can farms do to...' on the Student Worksheet. Then, explain that groups will now investigate their sustainable agriculture feature so they can briefly report back to the rest of the class. There is space in the Student Worksheet for this planning.

Note: You may need to clarify to the group with 'reduce or eliminate chemical use' that they should be looking for the alternatives to chemical use that will still keep crops healthy.

Step 5

Hold a presentation session, inviting students to summarise other groups' findings on their own Student Worksheet. Encourage clarifying questions at the end of each presentation.

Part B: Diamond ranking activity

Step 1

In this activity, students will think critically about a list of nine features of sustainable agriculture that they researched. Students will rank the nine features from most important to least important based on the following criteria:

'Features of agriculture that will contribute most to a sustainable future.'

Invite students to form groups of four (this number is a minimum for sustained discussion, developing skills in reaching a consensus and justifying opinions in a small group environment) and explain the Diamond Ranking Strategy as follows:

Rank each statement and arrange them in a diamond formation from top to bottom 1,2,3,2,1 cards.

Place the statement with the highest priority or importance at the top of the diamond and the least important statements at the bottom. The middle rows contain statements ranked in descending priority, with each row having two, three and two statements respectively.
Groups need to be able to justify the rankings they decide upon.

Note: There is no right or wrong answer to the ranking activity. It just a matter of perception and understanding.

Step 2

Distribute the sets of nine cards and invite students to complete the Diamond Ranking activity. To allow for quality discussion, this activity should take at least fifteen minutes.

Suggest that students begin with the most and least important features. It may take some time for students to reach a consensus on the most and least important, but once that is done they should find it easier to complete the rest of the diamond.

Encourage students to record their group ranking decisions on the template in the Student Worksheet.

While students are completing their group rankings, put your larger cards or digital list of features on display for the follow-up activity.

Step 3

After at least fifteen minutes invite volunteers to share their rankings with the class by inviting them to move the large cards on display or by manipulating the digital version. Encourage students to justify their first and second-ranked features, followed by their choice for the last position. Ask if other student groups agree using a show of hands. You might follow this with 'What did other groups have as their first ranking?’ Continue this process for approximately ten minutes encouraging all groups to contribute ideas.

Ask students if they think it is possible for the class to reach a consensus on the most and least important features. Advise them that there are no right and wrong answers. There will be differences because everyone looks at these features from a different perspective. You may consider discussing the factors that colour their perceptions, e.g. age, experience, understanding of farming, personal ideals.

You may like to consider these alternative Diamond Ranking approaches to increase the level of critical thinking in this activity. These will need a longer time allocation.

Let students decide the criteria for ranking the features they have been given.
Provide students with more than nine feature cards.
Provide one or two blank cards so students can swap a feature or two for something they think is better.

Extension: To help students understand the connected nature of food production, invite them to connect the features of sustainable agriculture in the diamond ranking on their Student Worksheets. Challenge students to draw a line between the features that they believe are related. You can illustrate this process by explaining that 'Maintain soil health' and 'Conserve water' could be linked because healthier soils can do a better job of retaining water than unhealthy soils do. Encourage students to briefly annotate the diagram with their reasons for linking the features. Conclude this extension activity by holding a class discussion on the links that students have made.

Part C: Making a food map

Step 1

Explain that during this activity students will be investigating one food producer in your State or Territory, to assess their role in achieving a sustainable food future. Display a list of different categories to which food producers can be matched:

Small-scale farming.
Large-scale crop and/or livestock farming.
Horticulture.
Urban agriculture.
Technologically innovative farm/facility.
Local food producer.

Note: This is just one possible way of categorising farms, and some activities may fit more than one category.

Discuss each category and ask students to suggest examples of farming activities that might fit each category, e.g. large scale - large physical size, common for monocultures and industrial farming systems. Examples could be cattle stations, wheat farms. Use Teacher Content Information to help inform this discussion.

Step 2

Invite students to form small groups and select a work area in the classroom. Invite groups to discuss which food producer category they will investigate and, by using their devices, locate a producer of this kind in your State. Explain that the group task has three components:

Collecting information about a selected food producer and represent that information using appropriate Geographical tools e.g. maps, photographs, statistics or tables, or satellite images.
Assess (make a judgement about) how well the farm is contributing to a sustainable food future for Australia. Collaboratively write one paragraph maximum, outlining this assessment.
Add responses to an interactive food map.

The Student Enquiry Resource sheet can be shared with students to kickstart their research.

Step 3

Advise students they need to collect evidence about their farm that will enable them to assess the contribution of that farm to Australia’s sustainable food future. You may need to explain that ‘to assess’ means to make a judgement. Ask students to consider their vision for a sustainable food future from Part B (Diamond Ranking activity) when making their judgement.

The following two examples (available in the Student Worksheet) show what this paragraph might look like. This will depend on the farm and category of farm selected for the inquiry and the information available:

Example a: 'The ... farm demonstrates a high level of sustainability and is doing as much as it can to produce quality food while minimising environmental impacts and supporting the farmer and his family. The farmer grows a diversity of native flowering plants to support bees and other pollinators and sells his produce locally and would, therefore, have a small ecological footprint. In conclusion the ... farm is contributing well to a sustainable urban future.’

Example b: ‘The ... farm has implemented many sustainable farming practices over recent years including ... . This has resulted in an increase in crop production, a reduction in erosion and a reduction in the need for irrigation water. The farm still faces challenges such as the use of fertilisers and herbicides as they are a large scale monoculture susceptible to pests and diseases and the produce is exported overseas. There is little biodiversity on the farm. The farm is contributing to a sustainable food future in Australia in some ways by reducing its environmental impact and providing a livelihood for an Australian farming family but there are other changes that could be made to reduce the food footprint of the farm. Planting wildlife corridors would support biodiversity and pollinator populations and retaining crop stubble would further reduce erosion and build healthy soils which in turn contribute to mitigating climate change by absorbing CO2.'

Step

Share the URL to the Padlet you set up, inviting students to open this on their devices. Explain that students can press the plus button to add text, images, links, and sound and video files to the map. This is where groups will be adding the information that they compiled about the farm they research.

Share with the class that next year's students will look at this map for inspiration before they create their food map. Students should add the names of their group's members to the end of their post on the interactive map.

Step 5

Once complete, be sure to go back into the share settings of your map and change the drop-down on 'those with access' from 'can write' to 'can read'.

This map can be shared beyond the classroom: encourage the class to brainstorm how they can get this information beyond the school gates and implement any ideas that are viable.

Reflection

Invite students to think about what they have learned in this lesson to respond to the following scenario (available in the Student Worksheet):

You have been appointed as Minister for Agriculture in Australia and have been given a budget to spend to help Australia achieve a sustainable food future by 2030. The money must be spent on sustainable food production. Briefly outline ONE project you would allocate this money to and why.

Differentiated learning

Extension - If you are completing this lesson in sequence (unit link), or if your class already have an understanding of sustainable agriculture and food security, invite the class to help create their own list of nine features of sustainable agriculture.

You may also choose to complete the diamond ranking activity by breaking apart a single issue that is relevant in your area. For example, you may choose to investigate soils health by breaking it into smaller issues such as soil and food security, soil and water quality, soil and human health, and soils and biodiversity.

Provisions for Learning Support - choose six issues to work with during the Diamond Ranking activity.

A Sustainable Food Future

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Summary

Learning intentions:

Students will...

Success criteria:

Students can...

Lesson guides and printables

Lesson Details

Skills

Curriculum Mapping

Resources Required

UN Sustainable Development Goals

Additional Info

Related Professional Learning

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