Day 10- Sustainable Agriculture
Homework
Wear shoes and clothes that you don't mind running in next class. We will be going outside to play a game. Keep up with your project, you should have everything completed.
Wear shoes and clothes that you don't mind running in next class. We will be going outside to play a game. Keep up with your project, you should have everything completed.
The Ingenious Inuit
READING A STORY
Read this story about ‘The Ingenious Inuit’.
Traditionally, the Inuit lived in the Arctic areas of northern Canada where there are brief mild summers and very long blizzardy winters. You might think that the summers are pleasant but the millions of biting insects, mosquitoes and gnats make life uncomfortable for people and animals alike. Even the caribou keep on the move to try to evade biting mosquitoes. Despite the frigid cold of winter, it is in some ways the more pleasant season, because the insects are gone. But in the deep of winter, the hours of daylight or twilight are few and wind howls and whips up the snow sometimes creating dreaded whiteouts. Sky and land are both white – you cannot see where the land ends and the sky begins – and travelers can easily lose their way. How did the traditional Inuit manage to subsist in what we would regard as a very difficult environment?
The answer, perhaps, is their ingenuity – their ability to find clever solutions to everyday problems of finding food and making shelter. A good example of their ingenuity is the traditional way of hunting wolves – an important source of fur and food for the Inuit. On foot, the Inuit is no match for the speedy wolf. So they use their ingenuity to hunt wolves.
A piece of bendy rib bone from a caribou is sharpened at both ends and carefully folded into a lump of seal meat so that the bone is in a round U-shape. Once in the wolves’ territory, the Inuit throws the piece of meat on to the snow where the wolves will find it. The hungry wolf sees fresh meat, swallows it in one great gulp and lopes away. The Inuit watches patiently, and tracks the wolf. Slowly the meat is digested in the wolf’s stomach, exposing the bone which opens out and begins to cut into the wolf’s stomach. The ingenious Inuit follows patiently. The wolf begins to falter, being scarred internally by the sharp bone; the Inuit closes in on his prey. Time passes. The wolf howls painfully and is unable to run any longer. The Inuit closes in. His ingenuity has given him wolf meat for meals and wolf fur for clothing.
Read this story about ‘The Ingenious Inuit’.
Traditionally, the Inuit lived in the Arctic areas of northern Canada where there are brief mild summers and very long blizzardy winters. You might think that the summers are pleasant but the millions of biting insects, mosquitoes and gnats make life uncomfortable for people and animals alike. Even the caribou keep on the move to try to evade biting mosquitoes. Despite the frigid cold of winter, it is in some ways the more pleasant season, because the insects are gone. But in the deep of winter, the hours of daylight or twilight are few and wind howls and whips up the snow sometimes creating dreaded whiteouts. Sky and land are both white – you cannot see where the land ends and the sky begins – and travelers can easily lose their way. How did the traditional Inuit manage to subsist in what we would regard as a very difficult environment?
The answer, perhaps, is their ingenuity – their ability to find clever solutions to everyday problems of finding food and making shelter. A good example of their ingenuity is the traditional way of hunting wolves – an important source of fur and food for the Inuit. On foot, the Inuit is no match for the speedy wolf. So they use their ingenuity to hunt wolves.
A piece of bendy rib bone from a caribou is sharpened at both ends and carefully folded into a lump of seal meat so that the bone is in a round U-shape. Once in the wolves’ territory, the Inuit throws the piece of meat on to the snow where the wolves will find it. The hungry wolf sees fresh meat, swallows it in one great gulp and lopes away. The Inuit watches patiently, and tracks the wolf. Slowly the meat is digested in the wolf’s stomach, exposing the bone which opens out and begins to cut into the wolf’s stomach. The ingenious Inuit follows patiently. The wolf begins to falter, being scarred internally by the sharp bone; the Inuit closes in on his prey. Time passes. The wolf howls painfully and is unable to run any longer. The Inuit closes in. His ingenuity has given him wolf meat for meals and wolf fur for clothing.
You have just read the story of ‘The Ingenious Inuit’ from your screen. Now listen to it as told by an experienced storyteller. Close your eyes to help the story come alive in your imagination.
CASE STUDIES OF SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE
Many people around the world are using farming methods to conserve and rehabilitate their land while increasing farm productivity and economic viability.
Read case studies of what some communities or farming families in four countries are doing to practice sustainable agriculture.
Read case studies of what some communities or farming families in four countries are doing to practice sustainable agriculture.
Sri Lanka
Indigenous or traditional societies are not the only ones that care for the Earth. Many contemporary groups are also actively working to ensure a sustainable future. These include international groups such as Amnesty International and the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) as well as many local conservation, development, youth and women’s groups. Success stories from groups like these can provide hope and inspiration as well as demonstrate practical solutions to today’s problems. This activity is based on story set in Sri Lanka. It concerns the people of a mountain forest village and the way their monk encouraged them to use locally relevant principles of sustainable living to organise village life.
The people of the village in this case study base their farming practices on six principles:
Harmony with nature
Doing things in a more natural way. Learning from the underlying co-operation of living and non-living things. Recycling our resources. Living and working with our environment in a sustainable way.
Quality of life
Living selfishly just for what we can get leads to misery and conflict with other people and the environment. Living selflessly to give, help and serve, leads to happiness, fulfillment and harmony with everyone and everything around us.
Self reliance
Not being dependent on other people, especially experts. Taking our own decisions, being responsible for ourselves. Participating, and doing what we feel to be the right thing.
Variety and diversity
Welcoming differences in ideas, opinions, people, etc. Respecting and valuing other people and their ideas, even though they may be different from us and our ideas. Not wishing to make things the same or uniform.
Small is beautiful
Wherever possible, organising things on a small scale gives control to ordinary people. Small groups can often get things done quickly. Large organisations are usually difficult to change, even when people’s needs change.
Co-operation and peace
All around the world we see competition and aggression. People feel that they must win at something to feel good. But people can share their skills and resources. By working together co-operatively with each other and our environment, we can lead a more peaceful and satisfying life.e
Harmony with nature
Doing things in a more natural way. Learning from the underlying co-operation of living and non-living things. Recycling our resources. Living and working with our environment in a sustainable way.
Quality of life
Living selfishly just for what we can get leads to misery and conflict with other people and the environment. Living selflessly to give, help and serve, leads to happiness, fulfillment and harmony with everyone and everything around us.
Self reliance
Not being dependent on other people, especially experts. Taking our own decisions, being responsible for ourselves. Participating, and doing what we feel to be the right thing.
Variety and diversity
Welcoming differences in ideas, opinions, people, etc. Respecting and valuing other people and their ideas, even though they may be different from us and our ideas. Not wishing to make things the same or uniform.
Small is beautiful
Wherever possible, organising things on a small scale gives control to ordinary people. Small groups can often get things done quickly. Large organisations are usually difficult to change, even when people’s needs change.
Co-operation and peace
All around the world we see competition and aggression. People feel that they must win at something to feel good. But people can share their skills and resources. By working together co-operatively with each other and our environment, we can lead a more peaceful and satisfying life.e