What really matters?

9-21 means a lot of things to a lot of people.......This Day in History discusses Collin Powell becoming the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1989, and even George Clooney debuting on the TV Show "The Facts of Life" in 1985.   It is also the birthday of Stephen King and HG Wells.  But yesterday, on 9-21, I spent the early evening with a group of teachers at the Chicago Teacher Center, and nobody really cared that Facebook had changed it's format.  Instead, we were concentration on an upper level activity for Ag in the Classroom featuring "The Hungry Planet" .

In our discussions, we use the book as a starting point to discuss what connects the 6.96 or so billion people who live on the earth....our food.  And how farmers in the United States are providing healthy food for their families, and families around the world.  We started with an explanation of corn and soybean exports as featured in our Ag Mags, as well as how the US uses products made from corn and soybeans.  Then we talked about how much land is actually used for growing food around the world. 

It is called a Slice of Soil, and it shows by slicing up an apple that only 1/32 of the earth's surface is used to produce our food.  3/4 of the earth ocean, 1/8 is deserts, swamps, Antarctic, mountain regions, and the last 1/8 is where man can live -but may or may not be able to grow food--that includes places that are too wet, too rocky, too dry or where soil is too poor to grow food.  Plus it includes areas that are developed by man.  That leaves 1/32 of the surface of the earth.   Next time you are in a store---check out an apple.  The little sticker on each apple is about the size of all the land we have to grow food on.   And that area doesn't get any bigger. 

The teachers in my session were stunned by this, and realized they didn't have a direct connection to where there food came from.  Shocked by this 4th grade lesson these adults all teachers from the City of Chicago spent the next 2 hours discussing where their food came from, what Americans have access to, as well as what people from other nations have for food access.  This lead to discussions on food deserts, nutrition, packaging, marketing, markets and even weather.  One of our 'Chicago Area Supporters' (meaning she has used AITC for several years!) said she heard the price of beef would go up next year as a result of the drought in Texas, and we discussed the weather as an impact on agricultural availabilities. 

It was a very interesting session, and I am confident the teachers will be ordering Ag Mags soon!  The ironic part was, we decided that even if Facebook went away, roughly only 4% of the population would be impacted.  But if we lose our access to soil, all 7 billion people will be impacted!