Unit 10 — June: Agribusiness, Entrepreneurship, and Ecosystem Ecology
Description
The year concludes with integration of business principles and ecological understanding. Students develop agribusiness concepts covering personal finances, accounting, economics, and agricultural product marketing. Working in groups, students create their own agribusiness from concept to execution, deciding what to grow, which land to buy, whom to hire, and how to market products. A concurrent plant sale provides practical experience growing and selling succulents or flowers, learning about storage, shipping, packaging, and handling. Students develop fruit packaging that balances safety and cost-effectiveness. The unit culminates with nature walks exploring on-campus ecosystems, food web analysis, and wildlife identification through scat, bird calls, tracks, and skeletal features.
Essential Questions
- What business skills are needed to run an agricultural enterprise?
- How do organisms interact in food webs and ecosystems?
- How do we identify species using ecological field methods?
- What does it mean to think systemically about agriculture?
Learning Objectives
- Apply financial and accounting concepts to agricultural business.
- Develop a viable agribusiness plan with resource allocation.
- Market agricultural products effectively.
- Grow and sell crops using business practices.
- Design cost-effective and protective packaging.
- Identify and describe ecosystems and habitat types.
- Analyze food webs and trophic relationships.
- Identify wildlife using multiple field methods.
- Synthesize knowledge across agriculture, ecology, and business systems.
Supplemental Resources
- Markers and poster board for business plan presentations
- Colored pencils for ecosystem diagrams and food webs
- Calculators for business calculations and budgeting
- Clipboards for field data collection
- Lined field notebooks for wildlife observations and notes
Crosscutting Concepts
Disciplinary Core Ideas
Earth and Space Sciences
Engineering, Technology, and Applications of Science
Life Sciences
Science and Engineering Practices
Students read and analyze informational texts about agriculture, food science, natural resources, and animal science topics throughout the year. They write argumentative and informative pieces, including blog posts, portfolio updates, and project reports, to communicate findings and support claims with evidence. Students engage in collaborative discussions, present research to peers, and develop vocabulary specific to agricultural science domains.
Students apply mathematical reasoning across units, including calculating feed amounts, fertilizer ratios, percent loss, square footage for chicken coops, costs of food using grocery ads, carrying capacity using graphs, acreage and supply calculations for agribusiness planning, and unit conversions in food science measurements.
Students conduct investigations and laboratory experiments aligned to life science, earth science, and engineering standards throughout the year. Topics include plant cell structure and function, photosynthesis and cellular respiration, genetics and heredity, ecosystem dynamics and food webs, water chemistry and macroinvertebrate biology, natural resource management, and engineering design applied to agricultural structures.
Students investigate the history of agriculture from Native American practices through the Industrial Revolution and into modern global food systems. They examine how cultural practices affect food production and distribution, explore food insecurity and inequality around the world, and analyze the relationship between natural resource use and societal development.
Career readiness, financial literacy, and 21st century life skills are embedded throughout the curriculum. Students explore careers in agriculture, food science, veterinary science, natural resource management, and agribusiness. They develop personal finance skills through grocery budgeting and agribusiness planning activities, and practice workplace readiness skills including teamwork, communication, and problem-solving across all units.
Formative Assessments
- Observations during agribusiness planning and plant sale
- Journals documenting business decisions and ecological observations
- Exit tickets on food webs and ecosystem concepts
- Group discussions on marketing and product development
- Pair-and-share on wildlife identification methods
Summative Assessment
Projects including agribusiness plans with budgets and hiring decisions, plant sale records, packaging design and cost analysis, ecological reports, and field identification labs
Benchmark Assessment
Study Island data, pre-assessments, quizzes, and unit tests on agribusiness concepts and ecosystem ecology
Alternative Assessment
Students may demonstrate understanding of agribusiness concepts through a structured teacher-led interview where they verbally explain their business plan decisions, product selection, and cost reasoning. Visual aids such as completed planning templates, product samples, or labeled ecological identification cards may replace or supplement written reports and field notes.
IEP (Individualized Education Program)
For the agribusiness planning and ecological components, provide graphic organizers that chunk the planning process into manageable stages, such as separating budgeting decisions from marketing decisions, so students can focus on one concept at a time. Allow oral or dictated responses for journal entries and exit tickets, and accept visual representations such as labeled diagrams for food webs and wildlife identification rather than requiring written explanations. During the plant sale and nature walks, pair students with a peer support partner and provide structured observation guides with sentence starters to scaffold both business decision-making and field recording.
Section 504
Ensure students have extended time for completing agribusiness plan components and the packaging cost analysis, as these tasks involve multi-step reasoning across business and science content. Preferential seating during group work and outdoor nature walk activities can reduce distraction and support sustained focus, and a printed copy of any directions given orally during field labs should be provided to support independent participation.
ELL / MLL
Pre-teach key vocabulary from both the business and ecology domains — such as budget, profit, marketing, ecosystem, food web, and trophic level — using visual glossaries with images and accessible definitions before students encounter these terms in context. Provide simplified written directions paired with visual models or diagrams when students are completing agribusiness plan components or field observation logs, and allow students to discuss ideas with a partner who shares their home language before contributing to whole-group discussions. Connecting plant sale or ecosystem examples to agricultural or natural environments familiar from students' home cultures can help build meaningful background knowledge.
At Risk (RTI)
Break the agribusiness plan into smaller sequential checkpoints so students experience early success and can build momentum across the four weeks rather than facing the full project scope at once. Connect financial and ecological concepts to relatable prior knowledge — such as managing personal money or recognizing local plants and animals — to establish accessible entry points before introducing more abstract content like trophic relationships or cost-benefit analysis. During group work, assign clearly defined roles that match each student's strengths so all members can contribute meaningfully to both the agribusiness and plant sale components.
Gifted & Talented
Encourage students to extend their agribusiness planning by researching real market conditions, sustainable agricultural practices, or supply chain logistics to add authenticity and complexity to their plans beyond the classroom simulation. For the ecology component, students can investigate how disruptions to a food web — such as the removal of a keystone species or introduction of an invasive plant — would affect the on-campus ecosystem they observed, synthesizing field data with broader ecological principles. Students ready for additional depth might also explore the intersection of agribusiness and ecosystem health by designing a business model that incorporates environmental sustainability metrics or considers the ecological footprint of their agricultural product choices.