Introduction and Rationale
“Essentially, we have to farm the way nature farms” – Wes Jackson, The Land Institute1
In June of 2023, I was standing in a row of coffee bushes on a hillside in Costa Rica. Planted among the coffee bushes were banana palms, rainbow eucalyptus trees, and various citrus fruit trees. As I walked through the rows of plants, I couldn’t help but notice the incessant chirping of several different bird species, matched only in volume by the continuous buzzing of insects. At my feet there was dark, rich, and fragrant soil. I couldn’t help but contrast this with the dominant type of farm in my home state of Delaware: row after row of corn or soybeans, the sounds of irrigation pumps and combine tractors, maybe some vultures flying overhead, and pale dusty dirt. This experience also reminded me of June of 2022 when I spent some time in a chacra in northeastern Peru learning about Indigenous agricultural practices that raised yuca (also known as cassava), banana, plantain, sugarcane, and cacao all in one space. Contrasting coffee fields in Costa Rica and chacras in Peru with cornfields in Delaware might seem obvious – these are very different locations and different crops. But what I observed in those places was more than just a different agricultural system from the ones in Delaware; what I observed was an agroecosystem. The coffee bushes and cacao trees and yuca plants were part of the ecosystem, not apart from the ecosystem. I left the coffee field with Wes Jackson’s quote resonating even more deeply than it had the first time I read it.
This experience also got me thinking about how my students view the foods and drinks they consume and the agricultural systems that produce those foods and drinks. If I were to ask them about coffee’s origins, most would probably say Starbucks, or Dunkin. Maybe someone has read a label and would (mistakenly) say Arabica. Similarly, If I were to ask my students where chocolate comes from, most of them would probably give one of the following responses: the grocery store, the Hershey plant, or somewhere near the equator. And if were to ask them about yuca, they would probably say “what’s that?”. Since chocolate and coffee (especially iced coffee with a lot of sugar and sweeteners) have become ever-present in my students’ lives, I feel they should learn more about their origins, and how farmers in Costa Rica and other regions are working to grow them more sustainably. Similarly, students should know more about traditional Indigenous farming (such as the methods that produce yuca) that has not been subjected to the same level of industrialization that traditional Western staple crops have been.
These agricultural systems that produce coffee, cacao, and yuca are vastly different from modern industrial agriculture, which more resembles an assembly line in a manufacturing plant than it does the growing of crops or raising of animals. This shift to industrial agriculture has had a profound environmental impact on the United States and the rest of the planet. The impacts include the clearing of forested lands, the whole-scale decimation of prairies and grasslands in favor of miles and miles of monocultures of corn, wheat, and soybean, the extermination of predator species to protect livestock, as well as on-going impacts related to the application of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides and the use of large-scale machinery run on fossil fuels.2
School Demographics
Students at William Penn High School are uniquely positioned to tackle the issues of modern industrial agriculture because we have a well-developed agricultural science program, a four-acre farm and full-time farm manager, two greenhouses, a small aquaculture facility, a wildflower patch, and a willingness to try out new educational models. WPHS is a public high school in the Colonial School District in New Castle County, DE. It is the only high school in the district and is the largest high school in the entire state, serving between 2,000 and 2,300 each year across grades 9-12. The district is considered suburban/urban fringe and serves a diverse population in terms of both race and income. In addition to offering students a traditional education, WPHS offers courses within numerous Career and Technical Education programs, as well as 25 Advanced Placement courses.
AP Environmental Science sits on the border between the CTE and AP worlds, as it serves as the capstone course for students in the Environmental Science and Natural Resources career pathway and is also open to any student who meets the prerequisites. Students in this pathway take coursework in foundational ecology, natural resource management, and environmental science issues before coming to AP-ES. By the time students enter the course, they should have a solid base of environmental science knowledge and skills. However, in my seven years teaching this course, I haven’t necessarily known this to be true. This year, I have been tasked with teaching all three levels of environmental science in hopes of streamlining and strengthening the pathway. My overarching goal is to provide students in the introductory and intermediate classes an experience that encourages them to continue studying the subject and to provide them with the foundational knowledge necessary to dive right into rich and rigorous content upon reaching AP-ES. This unit is one of the first steps in this process. While my intention is to develop an advanced level unit, I plan to teach elements of the unit in the introductory and intermediate courses.
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