This summary provides explanatory text and infographics explaining the global and national data, maps, and charts about the greenhouse gas emissions from livestock production.
Emissions by animal species, source, and food product are also provided.
Teaching Tips
Positives
This is a comprehensive document that students can use as a reference, with informative and useful infographics.
It helps students understand the data represented in the GLEAM tool.
Additional Prerequisites
Students should know how to read graphs and pie charts.
Differentiation
Students could use this summary to create a list of animal foods that would be the most climate-friendly and look at this article and video for the most climate-friendly foods available.
Students could investigate starting a Meatless Monday program at home or at school and create posters or informative media posts to educate others about the topic.
Students could investigate the staggering decline in wild animals as compared to the huge populations of livestock animals and humans. Have students think about how they can connect this to sustainability.
Scientist Notes
This resource describes the Global Livestock Environmental Assessment Model (GLEAM), which is used to study the emissions from animal agriculture across the globe. This resource is rather technical but provides good descriptions of the terminology used and sufficient resources (via various tabs) to understand what is presented. This resource is best suited for older students and can serve as a good example of the types of information used in complex models. This resource is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
HS-ESS3-6 Use a computational representation to illustrate the relationships among Earth systems and how those relationships are being modified due to human activity.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 3: Gathering and Evaluating Sources
D3.2.9-12 Evaluate the credibility of a source by examining how experts value the source.
Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)
Reading: Science & Technical Subjects (6-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.9-10.1 Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of science and technical texts, attending to the precise details of explanations or descriptions.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.11-12.10 By the end of grade 12, read and comprehend science/technical texts in the grades 11-CCR text complexity band independently and proficiently.
