Activities: "Improving Old MacDonald's Farm"

For Grades 6 - 8

Improving Old MacDonald's Farm (Full Article)(PDF) (2 pp, 1.5MB)

Improving Old MacDonald's Farm (Activity Sheets)(PDF) (9 pp, 850K)

Exercises:

Exercise I. Old MacDonald's Farmland Fertilizer Dilemma

Exercise II. Mooooving Those Cows

Objectives:

This exercise is designed to further explore topics addressed in the accompanying article. Students work through calculations to determine how much fertilizer is needed to meet a plant's nutrient requirements. From these calculations, students draw conclusions about the most cost-effective and environmentally sound farming practices.

Time Required:

Individual exercises are designed to be approximately 1/2 hour to 45 minutes long. These exercises are also ordered progressively: each builds on concepts introduced in the previous.

Curricular Standards and Skills:

Vocabulary:

• dead zone
• eutrophication
• pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides
• sedimentation

Middle Schools  |  Improving Old MacDonald's Farm  |  Exercises: I  |  II  |  Top