This video outlines the benefits of regenerative farming, in contrast to the downfalls of industrial farming practices, and highlights how this type of agriculture could improve soil fertility, food production, and biodiversity.
Students will learn how crop rotation, planting legumes, and agroforestry can help address climate change.
Teaching Tips
Positives
While this video does highlight the pitfalls of the agricultural industry, it also provides a hopeful outlook, outlining the many ways that this sustainable method could combat the climate crisis.
This video challenges students to think about ethical issues surrounding the agricultural industry.
Additional Prerequisites
Background information on the many impacts of agriculture may help students understand the dire need for more sustainable practices in food production.
This video includes English subtitles for the segments spoken in French and German, but subtitles can also be turned on in a variety of other languages.
Differentiation
Provide students with a graphic organizer that directs them to take notes on specific aspects of the topic, including biodiversity loss, overgrazing, ethical considerations, and obstacles to scaling regenerative agriculture.
Use this resource alongside this lesson plan that compares regenerative farming with industrial livestock operations.
Put advanced students in groups to research and discuss ethical issues surrounding farm animals and/or farm worker conditions. Alternatively, have them research the pesticides used on non-organic and non-regenerative crops to see how they may affect people and biodiversity.
Allow students to choose a related topic to research more thoroughly, with choices such as how synthetic fertilizer use affects watersheds and the climate, how livestock waste contributes to climate change and water pollution, or how legumes and some cover crops naturally restore the nitrogen in the soil.
As an extension, have students research functioning regenerative farms, such as this regenerative farm in Spain.
Scientist Notes
This video discusses farming, agriculture, and soil, and how they impact climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. Small-scale versus industrial-scale farming is also examined. The presenters do a nice job of explaining different farming methods, identifying which ones they think are better, and discussing why it is so hard for individual farmers to change how they operate. Some speakers do not speak English but are captioned in English. The information presented is accurate and this resource is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
HS-ESS3-4 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.
Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)
Speaking & Listening (K-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.3 Evaluate a speaker's point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric, assessing the stance, premises, links among ideas, word choice, points of emphasis, and tone used.
