Weird Richard News Update

Sent Date

01-12-02

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TECHNOLOGICAL LITERACY UPDATE

A weekly newsletter for families and educators committed to
building brighter futures for kids in a technology-rich society.
THIS WEEK: Part 2 in our brand new series as we delve into the
second of seven specific technologies - Agricultural
Technologies!!

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TECHNOLOGICAL LITERACY THIS WEEK

Welcome back to Technological Literacy! We sincerely hope your
holiday season was filled with warmth and joy. Further, may
2002 be an awesome new year for you, your family, and students!
Before we jump into the newsletter this week, first a few
housekeeping notes:

* Back Issues -- Thanks to everyone who has been sending us mail
requesting back issues of the newsletter. We will have back
issues available online soon. Thanks for your patience while
we try to find a little extra time to get this done.

* Unsubscribing-- We sent out a note last week to confirm your
subscription. Please follow the unsubscribe information at the
bottom of the letter if you ever wish to unsubscribe. Active
readers only, PLEASE!

Now, THE NEWS!

This is the second week in our new seven part series identifying
and addressing the significant technologies embedded in our day
to day lives. To refresh your memory, these technology areas
are drawn from Standards for Technological Literacy established
by the ITEA (www.iteawww.org). This week, we look at ITEA
Standard #15 -- "Students will develop an understanding of and
be able to select and use agricultural and related
biotechnologies."

AGRICULTURAL AND RELATED BIOTECHNOLOGIES - AN OVERVIEW

It is difficult to even begin a short newsletter article that
does justice to this extraordinary topic area. Let's start with
a brief definition:

"Agriculture is the practice or study of farming. It is the
system of cultivating and processing food items. Agriculture has
been around since ancient times and was the primary cause for
people to start living in groups."

In order to cultivate and process food items, the agricultural
industry utilizes amazing technology that touches us every day.
Consider the supermarket aisles that we take for granted on a
regular basis -- overflowing with colorful labels and so many
products that making a choice can be bewildering! Let's take a
simple example from the thousands of items and see what kind of
technology is involved in its delivery. Let's consider the
remarkable chain of events that must take place just to deliver
a single potato chip. First the soil must be prepared, the
seed gathered and prepared, then comes the planting, then
regular care including watering, weed and pest control, and
finally comes the harvest. But that is only the beginning!
After the harvest comes storage, sale, transportation,
processing, packaging, more transportation, marketing, and
finally a purchase by an end user. WOW!

Now, think of the various technologies that are involved in each
of these events. Just the act of planting the seed can require
the combined efforts of advanced mechanical, electrical, and in
some (controversial) cases, genetic engineering. The level of
technological complexity and sophistication required today to
actually be a professional farmer is staggering!

TRY THIS AT HOME OR IN YOUR CLASS!

Use the above example as a tool for elevating awareness of
agricultural technology with your students. Take any
agricultural product and, together with your students, create a
master "chain of events" chart that identifies each step that
must take place to deliver that product to the end user. Now,
brainstorm all the technology that may have been used in each
phase of the production process. This simple exercise can be
done on a blackboard or piece of paper in 30 minutes, but the
impact can last a lifetime as the complexity of an item as
simple as a potato chip becomes evident.

FUN FARM FACT: The average American eats 142.7 pounds of
potatoes each year; 16 pounds are eaten in the form of
potato chips.

ALTERNATIVE ACTIVITY

Pick a farm machine such as a combine and identify three simple
machines and three systems such as power transfer, hydraulics,
and electrical. This is a great way to integrate a real world
example of agricultural technology into your discussion!

NEXT WEEK: ENERGY AND POWER TECHNOLOGIES!!

We hope that this introduction to agricultural technologies, a
critical component to achieving technological literacy with your
students, has been useful to you and your educational efforts.
Next week, we continue this series and will address an equally
complex and exciting topic area -- energy and power!

Try to find a moment to integrate some of this information into
your daily routine with your students or family this week.
Together, we can build a brighter future for students around the
world by preparing them to use technology as naturally as they
use a pencil and paper!

Until next week!

Technological Literacy Update

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