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 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.

Produced by the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, these four guides form a four-part series, Living With Biodiversity: What You Can Really Do For the Environment. The four guides in pdf format are: Biodiversity and Your Food, Biodiversity and Your Energy Use, Biodiversity and What You Buy and Biodiversity and Your Water Supply.

This OLogy activity shows kids that there are simple, but very helpful things they can do to protect the ocean, even if they live nowhere near the water. It has a checklist of 14 ways kids can be ocean helpers that includes asking for tap water instead of bottled water and leaving plants and animals where they find them. For each of the checklist items, kids can check either "I am doing this" or "I could do this."

Produced by the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, this brief guide summarizes for policymakers the consequences of biodiversity loss for human health, including threats to global supplies of food and fresh water, exposure to formerly rare diseases and opportunistic infections, and loss of important sources of medicines. The guide can be downloaded as a pdf at no charge.

This online article, from the museum's Musings newsletter for educators, provides an introduction to environmental stewardship. It discusses Earth's rarity as a planet that supports life and the mounting evidence that indicates human activity is, indeed, altering global climate.

This fun Web site is part of OLogy, where kids can collect virtual trading cards and create projects with them. Here, they take a close-up look at biodiversity in a city park. The site opens by telling kids that, despite appearances, a great deal of biodiversity exists in cities. From tiny mites to mighty trees, thousands of species thrive there. It then takes them to a slice of life from a thriving city park, where they are asked to find 10 hidden critters living alongside the trees, plants, and insects. Each time they locate one of the tiny critters, they are rewarded with a quick look at its importance to the habitat.

This is a template for Nebraska Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources contributors for use in creating OER content. 

This online directory lists government environmental organizations that can help you identify good field sites, find educational programs and materials, and contact scientists or naturalists who can answer your questions. Along with the national headquarters for these organizations, the directory includes at least one contact each for the Northeast, Southeast, West, Midwest, and Northwest. Where available, the mailing address, phone number, Web site URL, and email address are given. In addition, the directory has links to two Web sites where additional state and regional resources can be located.

Grade Level: 8th-9thSubject: Introduction to Agricultural, Food, and Natural ResourcesDuration: 50 minutesDOK Level: 2-3SAMR Level: SubstitutionIndiana Standard: IAFNR-3.1 Explain the nature of and become familiar with those terms related to an SAE programIAFNR-3.2 Explore the numerous possibilities for an SAE program which a student might develop Objective: Students will be able to correctly identify the major types of SAEs with 100% accuracy. Students will be able to identify five possible SAE available to them.Essential Question: What is an SAE?Procedure: Start the google slide presentation What is an SAE?Stop at slide 7 and show the video SAE Experience itBreak the students into groups and have them brainstorm types of SAEGo over examples as a classResume the slide presentationIn groups have the students create a list of 10 benefits of an SAEHave the groups share their top three benefitsExplain the their assignment given through google classroomProduct or Assessment: The students will develop a list of 10 possible SAE that they personal could do. They are to choose one SAE and write a paragraph describing it. The last part of the assignment is for them to create three goals for their SAE to be completed by the end of the semester.

In this Nature video, learn about the extraordinary impact that birds have on the agriculture of a small Indian community.

This is a debate-style learning activity in which student teams learn about energy sources and are then assigned to represent the different energy sources. Working cooperatively, students develop arguments on the pros and cons of their source over the others.

This online article, from the museum's Musings newsletter for educators, takes a look at the strange plant known as the Kentucky coffee tree, Gymnocladus dioicus. It discusses how this plant gets its name and the reasons it now seems to be so poorly adapted to its native ecosystem.

This online article, from the museum's Musings newsletter for educators, provides some mind-boggling facts about leaf litter. It has an overview of what leaf litter is and how it's produced and a link for further research.

This online article, from the museum's Musings newsletter for educators, profiles two scientists who lead walking tours in New York City's green spaces. Bill Schiller, a botany lecturer and senior museum instructor, discusses the ways in which he "builds an appreciation of how nature works and a sense of responsible stewardship" during his tours. Bob DeCandido, an urban park ranger, explains how he "teaches city-dwellers to look closely at their wild neighbors and become better environmental stewards in the process." The article also includes ideas for four activities that can be completed during a walking tour.

We use eigenvector-eigenvalue analysis to walk through a simple quasispecies model described in Bull, Meyers, and Lachmann, "Quasispecies made simple," PLoS Comp Biol, 1(6):e61 (2005). The dominance of a genotype depends, not merely on its ability to breed quickly (i.e. the rudimentary concept of survival of the fittest), but also on its ability to breed "true."

Information and photos of atlases and maps used in Iowa Schools and the community from 1870-1950 from the Collections of the Iowa Rural Schools Museum of Odebolt

Students investigate passive solar building design with a focus on heating. Insulation, window placement, thermal mass, surface colors, and site orientation are addressed in the background materials and design preparation. Students test their projects for thermal gains and losses during a simulated day and night then compare designs with other teams for suggestions for improvements.

In this activity, students consider how several communities are adapting to climate change-related problems including drought's impacts on agriculture, loss of assets due to climate-related hazards, freshwater availability, and extreme heat waves. They will read brief case studies about agro-forestry, insurance strategies, the "Room for the River" program in the Netherlands, water storage from retreating glaciers, and city planning for heat waves. Based on these examples and knowledge of their own community, they will suggest possible adaptation strategies that will be most beneficial to their area.

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