This activity is designed to be used with the online text and graphics that are part of the Transformation of the Biosphere Wall in the Hall of Biodiversity. The one-page printable PDF includes two student activities: a general investigation of a threat to the world's biodiversity and a specific investigation of the concrete way in which one of these threats has affected the U.S. environment.

Data sets and graphs on energy production, use, dependency, and efficiency are compiled through following key World Development Indicators.

This lesson presents an overview of the importance of plants; the main parts of a plant; the types of each of the plant parts; and the relationship of each part to fruits, nuts, and vegetables. This represents a portion of the Introduction to Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources (AFNR) series in Nebraska middle and high school agricultural education.

This detailed chemistry lesson from the U.S. Department of Energy focuses on transforming vegetable oil into biodiesel through a process of transesterification. The process described offers a good model for many chemical reaction processes that are used to produce a viable product.

This lesson offers learners the opportunity to understand the importance of nutrition in the livestock industry and the differences between species in terms of anatomy, physiology, and nutrient requirements and/or deficiencies. This represents a portion of the Introduction to Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources (AFNR) series in Nebraska middle and high school agricultural education.  

This reference list has a dozen kid-friendly books on a wide range of biodiversity topics. For each title, the author, publisher, and publication date are included along with a brief description of the book. The list includes field guides and other reference books to help students begin exploring plants, insects, birds, and other living things, easy-to-complete activities to bring the importance of biodiversity home, and engaging stories that introduce students to cultural tales that celebrate biodiversity.

This is a extensive collection of maps, data, and tools that students can use to research drought and its impacts on agriculture, wildfires, water supply, vegetation, soil moisture, temperature and precipitation.

This handout is designed to enhance a visit to the museum's Hall of the Universe and Space Show. The printable two-page handout includes information about water, energy, elements, and the other factors whose favorable balance allows life to exist on Earth, an overview, with illustrations, of how our solar system was formed and questions for students to answer based on the information in this handout and the exhibits at the museum.

This activity guides students through an ‘idea storm’ where they practice identifying a pain point, or opportunity, in the context of exploring business ownership, entrepreneurship, and Supervised Agricultural Experiences as part of agricultural education.  Developed by Engler Entrepreneurship Program, University of Nebraska - Lincoln

This lesson presents an overview of Wildlife Management.  Learners will identify characteristics of wildlife, relationships between wildlife, identify approved practices in wildlife management and research a wildlife animal. This represents a portion of the Introduction to Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources (AFNR) series in Nebraska middle and high school agricultural education.

Using the context of apples, students will apply their knowledge of heredity and genetics to distinguish between sexual and asexual reproduction as they explain how new varieties of apples are developed and then propagated to meet consumer demand for a tasty, uniform, consistent product. Photo by Sokmean Nou on Unsplash

Images of Historical Iowa Maps that can be used in an Iowa History course

This open textbook covers common statistics used in agriculture research, including experimental design in plant breeding and genetics, as well as the analysis of variance, regression, and correlation.

Each of the books in the PBEA series comes with a section in its back matter titled "Applied Learning Activities" which includes additional content aligned to each chapter such as handouts and worksheets, csv files, code for statistical analysis in R, and recommended readings.

Listen to Sophia’s story as she shares how she chose to pursue a career in agriculture communications and what has helped her on the journey that led to her role with Frontier Cooperative. Thank you to Sophia for sharing your experience with us from the perspective of someone stepping into their career. We'd like to recognize Frontier Cooperative for their support of the Nebraska FFA Foundation and the work we do.

In this activity, students research the historical food consumption data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to observe trends, develop regressions, predict future behavior, and discuss broader impacts.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

In this deterministic cellular automata model, interactions between neighboring automata are described using a prisoner's dilemma. Limiting dispersal of seeds of annual plants can permit heterogeneous co-existence, whereas thorough mixing instead allows one subpopulation to dominate quickly.

This treasure-hunt activity is designed to be completed during a trip to the museum's Hall of Biodiversity. The printable one-page PDF challenges students to find 31 animals and plants in the Hall's diorama. Photographs of 21 of these specimens are included.

In a hands-on exploration, students will learn to describe and quantify the porosity and permeability of soil models representative of both agricultural and natural environments. Students will use this information to relate the effects of various agricultural methods on soil porosity and permeability in an exercise that requires modeling the role of a soil assessment expert. Instructors are provided with directions for collecting or assembling simple soil models.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)