This article examines how current rice production contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, different techniques that make rice production more sustainable, and the potential benefits of widespread improvements.
Students will learn that flooded rice paddies lead to methane emissions, that mid-season drainage is one technique that could make rice production more sustainable, and that applying sustainable methods to worldwide rice production can sequester many gigatons of CO2 equivalent emissions.
Teaching Tips
Positives
This article accounts for the cultural implications associated with rice farming.
This article is concise and easy to understand.
Additional Prerequisites
Students need to understand how methane emissions impact the Earth's climate.
Students need to understand the process of decomposition.
Some students may need the terms hectare, anaerobic, microbe, smallholder, degraded, sequester, and others defined before reading the article.
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Differentiation
Students can use this article for a research project on how greenhouse gas emissions and food production are connected.
Teachers can use this article as a conceptual introduction to different types of greenhouse gases and how each one contributes to climate change.
Students can research the cultural history of rice production and discuss the complications associated with trying to change practices with strong cultural roots.
This article can support a lesson on the environmental impact of various agricultural processes.
Scientist Notes
This article explores changing how rice is produced and cultivated as a climate solution. The article introduces a few different alternatives to the current method of rice cultivation. It acknowledges that rice is a prominent crop for many cultures worldwide. The article has the organization of a scientific paper, as it includes the introduction, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion sections. The authors address the limitations of the study. This format makes this resource a simplified example of how scientific articles are often structured. The article acknowledges its resources. The information presented is accurate, and this resource is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
HS-ESS3-3 Create a computational simulation to illustrate the relationships among management of natural resources, the sustainability of human populations, and biodiversity.
HS-ESS3-4 Evaluate or refine a technological solution that reduces impacts of human activities on natural systems.
LS2: Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
HS-LS2-7 Design, evaluate, and refine a solution for reducing the impacts of human activities on the environment and biodiversity.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 2: Economics
D2.Eco.1.9-12 Analyze how incentives influence choices that may result in policies with a range of costs and benefits for different groups.
D2.Eco.2.9-12 Use marginal benefits and marginal costs to construct an argument for or against an approach or solution to an economic issue.
Dimension 2: Geography
D2.Geo.9.9-12 Evaluate the influence of long-term climate variability on human migration and settlement patterns, resource use, and land uses at local-to-global scales.
Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)
Reading: Informational Text (K-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.2 Determine two or more central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to provide a complex analysis; provide an objective summary of the text.
Reading: Science & Technical Subjects (6-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.9-10.4 Determine the meaning of symbols, key terms, and other domain-specific words and phrases as they are used in a specific scientific or technical context relevant to grades 9-10 texts and topics.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.11-12.8 Evaluate the hypotheses, data, analysis, and conclusions in a science or technical text, verifying the data when possible and corroborating or challenging conclusions with other sources of information.
