Section D: Reflecting and Creating

• Projected Outcomes
  • Introduction
  • Reflecting
  • Creating
• Career Pathway content standards

Guiding Questions

1. In what ways does the enterprise we looked at yesterday illustrate what we learned on Days 1 & 2?
2. How could you create your own sustainable enterprise or evaluate an existing enterprise?
3. How are other people working to achieve the goals of sustainability in other parts of the US ?

Projected Outcomes

This segment will help students:

• Know how to evaluate the “sustainability” of an enterprise based on how well it contributes economic, environmental, and community benefits.
• Build teamwork and technology skills as they work cooperatively and use the internet to research and develop their own sustainable project.

Introduction

This section is designed to get students to apply the concepts covered in sections A and B to the case studies in Section C, and then to projects. The section consists entirely of guided discussion and student activities. If the class did not go on a field trip and/or if groups are reporting on case studies for their “Creating” projects, the “Reflecting” discussion can be omitted.

Time needed:

• 20 to 30 minutes for the “Reflecting” discussion,
• One hour for groups to research and prepare their “Creating” reports,
• Five to ten minutes for each group to present its report.

Reflecting

• In what ways does the enterprise we looked at yesterday illustrate what we learned on Days 1 & 2?

Have students share what they recorded on their worksheets. In what ways did the enterprise provide benefits in the three areas? What specific practices contributed to those benefits? Which areas were strong and which needed improvement? Encourage the students to brainstorm ways that the enterprise could add practices to help reach the goals of profitability, environmental quality, and supporting family and community.

Creating

• Create and present your own sustainable enterprise; Design and present your own farm agro-ecosystem, processing venture, or local food system (see project ideas below); or evaluate and present one of the 48 case study enterprises from the New American Farmer.

(Browse or search by commodity or problem addressed.)

Remember that sustainable agriculture and food systems utilize ecologically sound practices – to create value-added products for markets – that improve local community economies and quality of life. So your sustainable enterprise could be about growing, processing, or developing a value-added product, creating a community-based food project, or restoring natural resource and ecological systems that support our farming and food systems.

• First, have students get in groups of 3 to 4 people.
  • Have each team choose a project idea from the Project Ideas Worksheet (MS Word document).
  • OR Design their own sustainable agroecosystem, processing venture, or local food system,
  • OR choose one of the 48 New American Farmer case study enterprises (Browse or search by commodity or problem addressed).
    • OR choose any case study from USDA, UC Davis, Farmland Info, JenEhr Family Farm.  
• Give each team the guiding questions. They should try to answer them in their reports.
• Give each team 30 or more minutes to research the project idea or case study on the suggested web sites, the links on those web sites, and other resources in your classroom, library, or community.
• Give each team 10 or more minutes to prepare their report.
• Have each team present a 5 to 10-minute report on their project idea or case study to the class.
• Encourage at least 3 questions from the audience for each team presentation.

Guiding Questions Worksheet (MS Word Document)

Project Ideas Worksheet (MS Word Document)

Career Pathway content standards