This video explains how climate change has forced scientists and farmers to work harder to feed the growing population.
Students will learn how better farming methods and biotechnology have helped prevent widespread famines in the past.
Teaching Tips
Positives
The video explains the benefits of pairing innovative scientific techniques with traditional farming methods.
It illustrates how technological innovation can be used to mitigate the effects of climate change.
Additional Prerequisites
There are advertisements at the beginning and end of the video.
The video's content ends at 6 minutes, 27 seconds.
Differentiation
Science classes could make charts to show the pros and cons of biotechnology and traditional farming methods. Students could brainstorm ways for biotechnology and traditional farming methods to be used together to produce higher crop yields.
History classes could compare primary source documents about Norman Borlaug with modern documents about GMOs. Students could write about the way that current events shape people's opinions.
Other resources on this topic include this video on the differences between organic and conventional farming, this course on the environmental impacts of food and farming, and this video from the American Museum of Natural History on human population growth.
Scientist Notes
This video resource from PBS examines how we have continued to feed people, despite exponential population growth, using science. It also explores how scientists plan to feed the world as we continue to increase in population. This resource is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
MS-ESS3-2 Analyze and interpret data on natural hazards to forecast future catastrophic events and inform the development of technologies to mitigate their effects.
MS-ESS3-4 Construct an argument supported by evidence for how increases in human population and per-capita consumption of natural resources impact Earth's systems.
ETS1: Engineering Design
HS-ETS1-1 Analyze a major global challenge to specify qualitative and quantitative criteria and constraints for solutions that account for societal needs and wants.
LS1: From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes
HS-LS1-1 Construct an explanation based on evidence for how the structure of DNA determines the structure of proteins which carry out the essential functions of life through systems of specialized cells.
HS-LS1-5 Use a model to illustrate how photosynthesis transforms light energy into stored chemical energy.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 2: History
D2.His.1.6-8 Analyze connections among events and developments in broader historical contexts.
D2.His.1.9-12 Evaluate how historical events and developments were shaped by unique circumstances of time and place as well as broader historical contexts.
