In 1803, the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory—800,000 square miles of land in the interior of North America. Most of this land had not been previously explored or documented. President Thomas Jefferson chose Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to lead an ambitious military expedition, seeking a northwestern passage to the Pacific Ocean and to document their journey in this unknown territory. Starting in what is now Missouri, the expedition followed the Missouri River and passed through present-day Montana on its way to the Pacific. The explorers commented on the beauty of the landscape and the abundance of animals, and their descriptions attracted fur traders and others ready to take advantage of the region's abundant natural resources. The discovery of gold in 1862 brought in the first rush of people and subsequent mining forever changed the region. The mining industry demanded support in the form of towns, railroads, logging, ranching, and farming. These industries shaped Montana and the people who settled there. This exhibition explores the industries that brought settlers to Montana from the early days to the 1920s. Each industry had its own “boom and bust” cycle that impacted the residents and the future of the state. This exhibition was created as part of the DPLA’s Public Library Partnerships Project by collaborators from Montana Memory Project: Jennifer Birnel, Della Yeager, Cody Allen, Dale Alger, Caroline Campbell, Carly Delsigne, Pam Henley, Stef Johnson, Lisa Mecklenberg-Jackson, Laura Tretter, and Franky Abbott. Exhibition organizers: Jennifer Birnel and Franky Abbott.

This database of lessons is provided to support agriculture education in California classrooms. Over the last century, children have become further removed from the land that feeds and clothes us. And yet, Agriculture is the very basis of civilization—the food we eat, the clothing we wear, the material of our homes and many of our traditions and values…all coming from agriculture and collectively setting the pace for a nation's standard of living. The California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom works with K–12 teachers, and students to enhance education using agricultural examples.

Food production has advanced from the original form where humans gathered food from the wild, to cultivation and selection of wild plants (landraces), and further to modern-day plant breeding of new varieties and cultivars with high quality, yields, and resistance to abiotic and biotic stresses. Food crops have been derived from wild plant species (crop wild relatives) from throughout the world and are now cultivated in locations that may be far from their original sources. Here, we provide information and illustrations about where food crops originated and we highlight the important work of the Russian Geneticist Dr. Nikolai Vavilov, who introduced the concept of “centre of origin” for crop plants and encouraged the conservation and use of crop wild relatives for plant improvement.

Students pretend they are agricultural engineers during the colonial period and design a miniature plow that cuts through a "field" of soil. They are introduced to the engineering design process and learn of several famous historical figures who contributed to plow design.

Students learn how the process of soil solarization is used to pasteurize agricultural fields before planting crops. Soil solarization is a pest control technique in agriculture that uses the sun’s radiation to heat the soil and eliminate unwanted pests that could harm the crops. The approach is compared to other pest control methods such as fumigation and herbicide application, highlighting the respective benefits and drawbacks. In preparation for the associated hands-on activity on soil biosolarization, students learn how changing the variables involved in the solarizing process (such as the tarp material, soil water content and addition of organic matter) impacts the technique’s effectiveness. A PowerPoint® presentation and pre/post-quiz is provided.

In 1931, a severe drought hit the Southern and Midwestern plains. As crops died and winds picked up, dust storms began. As the "Dust Bowl" photograph shows, crops literally blew away in "black blizzards" as years of poor farming practices and over-cultivation combined with the lack of rain. By 1934, 75% of the United States was severely affected by this terrible drought.The one-two punch of economic depression and bad weather put many farmers out of business. In the early 1930s, thousands of Dust Bowl refugees ? mainly from Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, Kansas, and New Mexico ? packed up their families and migrated west, hoping to find work. Entire families migrated together (such as the men shown in "Three generations of Texans now Drought Refugees") in search of a better life. Images such as "Midcontinent ? Family Standing on the Road with Car," "Drought Refugees," and "Untitled, ca. 1935 (Worn-Down Family in Front of Tent)" offer a glimpse into their experience on the road, and show that cars provided many families both transportation and shelter on the road. About 200,000 of the migrants headed for California. The state needed to figure out how to absorb the thousands of destitute people crossing its borders daily. One of their tactics was to document the plight of the refugees. In 1935, photographer Dorothea Lange joined the Rural Rehabilitation Division of the California State Emergency Relief Administration (SERA), a section of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. She was assigned the job of using her camera to document the growing number of homeless Dust Bowl refugees migrating to California. She worked with Paul S. Taylor, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who was researching conditions of rural poverty in order to make recommendations on how to improve the workers' conditions. The work by Taylor and Lange played an important role in helping to raise public awareness of the crisis. The reports they made for the government included both data and striking images that revealed the desperate conditions in which the migrants lived and confirmed the need for government intervention. Stark images such as "Home of Oklahoma Drought Refugees" resonated with the public, and portraits of drought refugees like "Ruby from Arkansas" and others shown in this topic humanized the migrants for more fortunate citizens. In March 1936, Lange took what became one of her most famous images, "Migrant Mother." This image of a 32-year-old woman became an icon for the suffering of ordinary people during Great Depression.

The Great Depression was a trying time for multitudes of Americans during the 1930s.  Some could argue, though, that it was America's farmers that suffered the most.  Farmers began to feel the economic crisis after World War One ended and the demand for their crops, produce, and livestock dropped dramatically.  For the farmers of the Midwest, they faced an environmental, as well as, an economic crisis throughout the 1930s.  The resources featured here can be used independently by students or in small-or-whole group instruction.

In the growing season, farmers and ranchers keep a watchful eye for any sign of drought. Early warning information can increase their range of options for dealing with the lack of water.

This Unit is a collection resources that cover a 4 week span. This unit was designed with EL students in mind. Each day has vocabulary that will allow students learn key phrases and attributes of each career. Each week a different categories of careers is highlighted through books, activites, and videos. The categories include:Week 1: Farming CareersWeek 2: Health CareersWeek 3: Environmental CareersWeek 4: Art Careers Projected Funded by: PGE Foundation  #PoweringPotentialProject Coordinated by: South Metro-Salem STEM Partnership

The learning resources presented here have been developed through an ERASMUS+ project for adult education entitled “FARMINFIN: Farming concepts and innovative funding/financing” (Project Nº: 2019-1-BE01-KA202-050397) carried out between 2019 and 2021.

The FARMINFIN project provides farmers with the needed competences for the implementation of innovative financing means tailored adequately for their own farms, entrepreneurial approach and personal circumstances.

FARMINFIN training material is aimed at young farmers taking over the business of their parents or simply aiming at business development. For them it is very important to have a solid financial basis for their agricultural businesses!

FARMINFIN has developed a web-based app where you can access to all the project’s training materials which are available in 7 languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Czech and Swedish. Through our learning platform you will be able to:

1. Get an overview of the actual situation of innovative financing in family farms in Europe and the available financing tools.
2. Gain knowledge and experience from selected best practices across Europe.
3. Foster professional handling of innovative financing means by farmers.
4. Strengthen economic and socio-economic viability of family farms, and therefore deliver added value to rural development.

The training resources you will find are the following:

SUMMARY REPORT: here you will find an overview of the situation of alternative ways of financing in the farming sector in Europe. The report provides a picture of the common findings across participating project countries, which have been analysed in more detail. You will find also in this section a downloadable annex that graphically shows all the data collected during the development of the report and can be viewed in detail segmented by country.

CATALOGUE: In the catalogue you will find not only a list of the main subsidies’ lines and general financing products, but also the financing products adapted to agriculture and more importantly, a large catalogue of the main products of alternative or innovative financing illustrated with a diagram showing the actors involved and the relationships between them. More specifically, the catalogue has identified:
- 14 of the main lines of subsidies.
- Main general funding products categorised into:
o Public sector (both European and national);
o Short-term private sector (11 tools identified);
o Long-term private sector (8 tools identified).
- Main financing products adapted to agriculture, for the agricultural, livestock and forestry sector.
- Main innovative financing products, where a total of 21 innovative financing tools have been catalogued in detail, including diagrams to illustrate how they work.

BEST PRACTICES: in this section you will find a series of 17 examples of farms across Europe that represent a wide range of best practices in the implementation of innovative financing schemes in the farming sector. Through this section you will learn from real experiences, reading about farmer’s problems related to financing and how they solved them. Learning from existing experiences will surely inspire you.

TRAINING MODULES: learning materials plenty of tips and suggestions on how to deal with relevant topics around the financing of your farm. In addition to the prepared contents of the modules, there is an opportunity to self-test your initial knowledge before taking the module and there is also a test at the end of the module to see whether you understood the contents. The modules also include useful templates, canvas and tools to be used in your learning pathway as well as in your professional activity.

For all components of the learning platform, information is provided in a comprehensive and user-friendly design and the materials can also be downloaded in PDF format.

In this video from Common Ground and Cleaner Water, Tribby Vice, a Kentucky farmer, talks about the changes he has made on his farm to protect the water quality of the stream running through his property and the watershed in which he lives.

In this video segment adapted from NOVA, scientists investigate how farming along the Mississippi River impacts floods and what can be done about it.

A video covering the medieval farming and life styles preserved in Laxton, a small village in Nottinghamshire which has survived the modern age. Includes images and artefacts from the exhibition presented by the University of Nottingham Department of Manuscripts and Special Collections.

Suitable for community education, secondary education, undergraduate year one and further education

Author and presenter: Kathryn Summerwill.

Kathryn Summerwill qualified as a professional archivist from the University of Wales, Bangor, in 1996, and has been an Assistant Archivist in The University of Nottingham’s Manuscripts and Special Collections Section since 2002. She is part of a team of staff using digital tools to extend the provision of traditional printed guides and catalogues, and has curated a number of exhibitions featuring material from the collections.

A video covering the medieval farming and life styles preserved in Laxton, a small village in Nottinghamshire which has survived the modern age. Includes images and artefacts from the exhibition presented by the University of Nottingham Department of Manuscripts and Special Collections.

Suitable for community education, secondary education, undergraduate year one and further education

Author and presenter: Kathryn Summerwill.

Kathryn Summerwill qualified as a professional archivist from the University of Wales, Bangor, in 1996, and has been an Assistant Archivist in The University of Nottingham’s Manuscripts and Special Collections Section since 2002. She is part of a team of staff using digital tools to extend the provision of traditional printed guides and catalogues, and has curated a number of exhibitions featuring material from the collections.

The purpose of this resource is to introduce the process of benchmarking in farming. It is a very basic tutorial aimed at familiarizing farmers with the practice of benchmarking in farm management. This resource hope to encourage learners to research further learning resources and opportunities. The content of this resource is derived from:

Kahan, D. (2013). Farm business analysis using benchmarking. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

This kit explores how sustainability within the Finger Lakes region of New York has been presented in the media with a particular focus on issues related to food, water and agriculture. Each of the seven lessons integrates media literacy and critical thinking with key knowledge and concepts related to sustainability. This kit is a companion to the nineteen-lesson collection, Media Constructions of Sustainability: Food, Water and Agriculture.

Against the backdrop of the devastating 1930's Dust Bowl, this video segment adapted from Interactive NOVA profiles an organic farmer and the techniques he uses to conserve topsoil.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Antimicrobial resistance is a critical threat to human and animal health. Animal production systems, with their often-heavy use of antibiotics, are a major driver of antibiotic resistance globally. The resistome is the collection of antibiotic resistance genes in a population of bacteria and is a window into the accumulation of antibiotic resistance in a system. A recent study compared the resistomes of an industrialized intensive pig farming system and a traditional extensive farming system. The extensive systems have lower animal densities, outdoor housing, older age at slaughter, and – critically – less antibiotic use compared to the intensive systems. Researchers examined the metagenomes of the pigs’ intestinal microbiomes, the environment on the farm, and the slurry of pig waste. Compared with extensive farms, intensive farms had a higher abundance of antibiotic resistance genes. The class of antibiotics used correlated with the category of resistance genes observed..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

For irrigated crops, knowing when and how much water to apply has long been a matter of experience and guesswork. In a changing climate, new technology can reduce this uncertainty, enabling farmers to make every drop of water count.

Growers, packing centers, and retailers rely on one another to prevent contamination and keep consumers safe. Four animations illustrate how contamination can spread from field to table and suggest ways to avoid this. Applicable to various tree and ground fruits including cantaloupe, cucumbers, and strawberries, the animations follow the lifespan of an imaginary "purple fruit," highlighting danger points at each stage of the process and suggesting best practices for keeping produce free from contamination. Although the animations are brief, they include "Pause Points" (recommended spots to pause the video) where a presenter can discuss, distribute additional materials or reinforce learning during a training.