IB ESS
Topic 5: Soil Systems

Mini-Project – 20 pts

Food Production Project

Purpose

For this project, you will design a poster used to highlight a behavior change someone could make that would help increase the sustainability of our food production systems. The poster should be persuasive–you are trying to convince people to make the change you’ve chosen! There are many options for a topic, but here is a list below to get you started:

Food Production

  • Mixed cropping/interplanting
  • Trickle irrigation
  • Growing GM foods (ex–inserting nitrogen fixing genes)
  • Hydroponics (growing plants without soil)
  • Agroecology
  • Greenhouse growing (instead of open fields)

Consumer Behavior

  • Choosing crops based on sustainability
  • Eating lower on the food chain (less meat)
  • Ugly food movement
  • Food education
  • Eating insects!
  • Eating local
  • Reducing food processing or packaging

Once you have chosen a topic, you will do research to see how this behavior change might affect the sustainability of our food systems. You will create a one-page (only) poster on canva to show your research. You can also draw it by hand and take a picture. It should include:

  1. A description of the problem (6 pts)
    1. What problem is your solution or behavior going to solve? Why is it a problem? Give statistics where possible (e.g. 100 trees are lost every year due to logging!)
  2. A description of your solution (6 pts)
    1. What exactly should farmers/consumers/others do?
    2. Why does this solve the problem?
    3. Any estimates of impact should be included (e.g. this would save 50 trees per year)
  3. Visuals (4 pts)
    1. Include visuals and pictures. Your poster should be thoughtfully designed and easy to read
  4. Participation in Small Group Share (4 pts)