2 science discussions due in 16 hours

DUE IN 16 HOURS 

Food Resilience Plan for Ashfordton [WLO: 2] [CLOs: 2, 3]

Prior to beginning work on this discussion forum, read Chapter 4 in your course textbook.

Imagine that you are a resident of Ashfordton, a community whose characteristics are described below. You have come together with your neighbors for a special meeting to devise a management plan for helping the community become more resilient and sustainable in terms of its food production by 2050. A community that is resilient is able to recover quickly from events like drought or storms. By increasing its own food production, Ashfordton can also reduce its food miles—the distance that imported food must travel. By making its food production more sustainable, Ashfordton can help ensure that its residents’ food needs are supplied for generations to come, without placing undue harm on the local environment in the process.

Fortunately, you have all attended the meeting with the knowledge that you have gained from your readings in this course. Now it is time to put your thinking cap on and get to work! Your ideas should consist of one or more of the following elements (some suggestions may apply to both categories):

• Food resiliency measures (e.g., building vertical farms in the city center to ensure that urban residents can have access to fresh, organically grown produce).
• Food sustainability measures (e.g., phasing out use of organic pesticides in favor of companion planting and other organic methods).

This week’s discussion will take place in an online app called Tricider. There, you will be able to post your ideas for plan components and also share pros and cons of different proposals during the week. Finally, you will be able to vote on the three components that you think the plan should include.

For directions on how to use the Tricider app, please review the Tricider Help Guide. In Tricider, you will be expected to do the following:

• Post at least two separate and entirely original ideas. Do not duplicate ideas already posted by your peers.
  •  Include your full name for each one.
• Post at least six different pros and six different cons for your classmates’ proposed ideas (12 in all).
• Vote on what you feel are the top three ideas in the list.
  • Do not vote before Friday, so that you can vote from the full collection of student ideas.

You must complete the three tasks above to receive full credit for this discussion.

Please note: You are welcome to post questions and comments to this board for your instructor; however, this discussion board does not have any posting requirements of its own, and no additional credit will be given for posts made here.

In this discussion area, your instructor will post the following:

• The Ashfordton description you will be using for this activity.
• The link you will be using to access Tricider for this activity.

 Food Resilience Plan Voting Rationales [WLO: 1] [CLOs: 3, 4, 6]

Prior to beginning work on this discussion forum, read Chapters 3 and 4 in your course textbook.

Now that you have cast your votes for the Ashfordton Food Resilience Plan, it is time to explain your choices to the class. Please make a post of at least 150 words in which you

• Identify (briefly) the plan elements on which you voted.
• Explain why you selected each one.

Each of the elements with an explanation is worth .5 point for a total of 1.5 points.

Note: You will not be able to view others’ posts until you have made your own. At the end of the week, the instructor will post the winning Ashfordton Food Resilience Plan, which will include the top three ideas selected by the class. In cases where two action items are judged by the instructor to be nearly identical, the instructor reserves the right to combine the ideas into a single one (and add votes together) in order to determine the winning ideas. This plan will be posted in the Announcements area of the classroom.

Required Resources

Text

Bensel, T., & Carbone, I. (2020). Sustaining our planet. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu

• Chapter 3: Managing Our Population and Consumption
• Chapter 4: Sustaining Our Agricultural Resources

Supplemental Material

Carolina Distance Learning. (n.d.). Properties of soil: Agricultural and water availability impacts [Investigation manual]. Retrieved from https://ashford.instructure.com

• The Properties of Soil: Agricultural and Water Availability Impacts investigation manual is available in the online classroom. This lab manual provides background information on soil properties and will assist you in your Properties of Soil: Agricultural and Water Availability Impacts Laboratory assignment.

Laboratory Supplies

Carolina Biological Supply Lab Kit  (Links to an external site.)

• This lab kit provides lab supplies and materials for the hands-on labs that you will conduct for this course. Although the lab kit provides most of the lab supplies for the labs, there will be materials that you need to purchase independently for a few labs. Be sure to prepare a list of what you will need to purchase independently by viewing the lab investigation manuals and lab kits in advance. To see a checklist of the additional lab supplies that you will need each week for this course, access the Additional Lab Supplies Checklist.

Recommended Resources

Article

FoodPrint. (n.d.). Sustainable agriculture vs. industrial agriculture (Links to an external site.). Retrieved from https://foodprint.org/issues/sustainable-agriculture-vs-industrial-agriculture/?cid=246

• This web page provides information about the basic elements of sustainable agriculture and may assist you in your Sustainable Living Guide Contributions: Sustaining our Agricultural Resources Assignment.
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Multimedia

Ashford University. (2018). SCI207 – The scientific method (Links to an external site.). Retrieved from https://ashford.mediaspace.kaltura.com/media/SCI207+-+THE+SCIENTIFIC+METHOD/1_5325onvq

• This video provides information on the scientific method that will assist you in completing your Stream Morphology laboratory activity this week. This video has closed captioning.

Happen Films. (2017, May 21). Organic sustainable farming is the future of agriculture | The future of food (Links to an external site.) [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/hWkYtZxpQUo

Web Pages

University of California Davis, Agricultural Sustainability Institute. (n.d.). What is sustainable agriculture (Links to an external site.). Retrieved from http://asi.ucdavis.edu/programs/sarep/about/what-is-sustainable-agriculture

Union of Concerned Scientists. (n.d.). What is sustainable agriculture? (Links to an external site.) Retrieved from https://www.ucsusa.org/food-agriculture/advance-sustainable-agriculture/what-is-sustainable-agriculture#.W1Ekbdgzqu4

• This web page provides information about sustainable agricultural practices and may assist you in your Sustainable Living Guide Contributions: Sustaining our Agricultural Resources assignment.
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