THE ISSUE

Agriculture is a major contributor of greenhouse gases. Certain management practices can substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but these practices are not always economically viable for farmers.

ECOLOGICAL CONTENT

Oxidation of soil organic carbon due to agricultural management, sources of methane in agriculture, conversion of soil nitrogen to nitrous oxide, radiative forcing of greenhouse gases, carbon sequestration in agricultural soils, global warming potential from agricultural ecosystems. Other key words include carbon cycle, fertilizer, organic agriculture, no-till, carbon sources and carbon sinks.

STUDENT-ACTIVE APPROACHES

Turn to your Neighbor, Think Pair Share, Guided Class Discussion, Paired Think Aloud, Citizen’s Argument

STUDENT ASSESSMENTS

Short Essay, Minute Paper, Land Management Activity

AUTHOR

Brook J. Wilke¹, ² (wilkebro@msu.edu) and  Justin Kunkle¹,² (kunkleju@msu.edu)

1 Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824
2 W.K. Kellogg Biological Station, Hickory Corners, MI 49060

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank numerous people at the W.K. Kellogg Biological Station (KBS), including Phil Robertson, Laurel Hartley and Sara Syswerda for inspiration, Drew Corbin for organizing years of data collection and everyone involved in the GK-12 Program, including graduate fellows and teachers. We thank the National Science Foundation and the Long Term Ecological Research network for providing funding for research and educational activities at KBS. We thank Charlene D’Avanzo for providing guidance in developing this activity and Katie Button, Jarad Mellard, Gary Mittelbach, Todd Robinson and Lindsey Walters for providing comments on earlier versions of the activity. Two anonymous reviewers were very supportive and provided excellent suggestions for revisions. This is KBS contribution #1444.

CITATION

Wilke, B. J. and J. Kunkle. February 2009, posting date. What does agriculture have to do with climate change? Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology, Vol. 6: Issues Figure Set #3 [online]. http://tiee.ecoed.net/vol/v6/figure_sets/climate_change/abstract.html