Lesson Title: Interpreting Agricultural Regions

Authors: Janet Hadley and Georgeanne Hribar

Author Info: Broadway High School, Broadway, Virginia
Ocean Lakes High School, Virginia Beach, Virginia

Grade: Advanced Placement Human Geography

Outcomes:
Describe the distribution of agriculture on the surface of Earth.

Identify crops cultivated in each of the following types of agriculture: subsistence, plantation, and commercial.

Explain the relationship between agricultural land use and the physical environment, e.g., climate, topography, availability of water resources, and soil structure.

Identify the different types of subsistence agriculture and the methods each uses, e.g., shifting, pastoral nomadism, intensive subsistence with and without rice.

Identify the different types of commercial agriculture and describe the methods each uses, .e.g. plantation, dairying, and truck farming.

Identify similarities and differences between agricultural patterns in developed and developing countries, e.g., size of farm, who gets the output, type of agriculture, degree of mechanization, percentage of people engaged in agriculture, agricultural methods, and degree of environmental manipulation.

Key Words: agriculture, subsistence, plantation, commercial,

Time Needed: Two to three ninety-minute class periods.

Overview: The varied types of agricultural practices form definite patterns on the surface of the earth. This exercise, based on a series of vignettes, asks student to apply their knowledge of the distribution of agricultural activity to hypothetical descriptions. The students should be able to interpret the information in the narrative to identify the category for the agricultural activity as either subsistence or commercial. The student should also use clues from the content of the story to further identify the type of agriculture described.
Since the readings also provide descriptions of the physical environment, students should be able to infer the climate region associated with that type of economic activity.
Even though the students have not been formally introduced to the concepts of developed and developing countries, the readings provide information that could be used to identify the characteristics of developed and developing economies.
The categorization of agricultural activity is based on the work of Derwent Whittlesey. A list of those regions can be found in the Goode's Atlas page 34 and Rubenstein's An Introduction to Human Geography, p. 392.

Objectives: :The student will be able to:
1. Obtain geographic information from a narrative description.
2. Categorize an agricultural activity as either subsistence or commercial.
3. Provide facts to support a conclusion.
4. Make generalizations based on data provided in a short narrative.
5. Identify the type of agriculture using Whittlesey's agricultural regions.
6. Identify similarities and differences between and among the various types of agricultural regions.
7. Explain the relationship between climate and agricultural activity.
8. Assess positive and negative consequences for each of the types of agricultural activity.

Materials:
Interpreting Agricultural Regions vignettes
An assortment of atlases that contain thematic maps illustrating agricultural land use, climate, and vegetation zones.

Preparation:
1. Duplicate the Interpreting Agricultural Regions readings, one or two per group of students. Cardstock would be an excellent choice of paper for this task.
2. Cut apart the readings according to the corresponding letter of the story.
3. Mix up the readings in order to ensure a random distribution of the stories.

Activity:
1. Ask students to list the various categories of agricultural activity. Answers should include subsistence, commercial, and plantation. Have students further identify examples of the various types of agriculture within each of the categories.
2. Ask students to suggest what types of information distinguish the various types of agriculture. 3. Record student answers on the board for later reference. Students might suggest answers such as the size of farm, degree of mechanization or the final consumers of the product as various ways to compare the types of agriculture.
4. Explain the difference between extensive and intensive land use. Have students suggest possible reasons why large amounts of land must be used--machinery, dry climate, and fertility of the land.
5. Divide the class into groups you deem appropriate for this activity.
6. Give each group of students one or two of the vignettes.
7. Instruct students to identify: the type of agriculture, the probable climate zone, and the various types of technology used in that particular agricultural activity. Have students suggest countries where the agricultural activity could possibly take place.
8. Have students present their vignettes and answers to the class.
9. Discuss the validity of the student answers. There may be multiple right answers for the climate type, but keep in mind there are definite wrong answers. For example, dairy farming is seldom successful in a desert or icecap climate region.
10. Other concepts could be developed in the course of the presentation and discussion of the vignettes. Students compare the amount of land needed for each agricultural activity and suggest possible consequences to the environment. Encourage the students to suggest other factors that could influence agricultural decision making such as cultural beliefs and customs. You could begin to lay the foundation for a comparison of agriculture in the developed and developing regions of the world by directing student attention to factors such as reliance on the world market, use of low levels of technology, and population characteristics.


Evaluation:
Have students write descriptions of a given agricultural region. Students should include the type of crops appropriate and the associated climatic characteristics.


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