Steady+Food+Supply

=Introduction and Task=


 * [[image:crops.jpg width="250" height="163" align="left" caption="Crops, CC Attribution, Art Pets Photography"]] A griculture** is the growing of crops and domestication of animals, and one of the most important advances in all of history **(Agricultural Revolution)!** Having a stable food supply allowed civilizations to make permanent shelters, establish larger communities, develop new kinds of jobs, and begin trading.

Your client, **Jon Deer**, is a farmer and machinery salesman keenly interested in how Han Dynasty China and Imperial Rome provided food for its citizens. Mr. Deer raises cattle and grain on his highly mechanized 5000 acre ranch and spends much of his time managing his equipment dealership, "Tri-County Tractor." To help Mr. Deer decide which empire he should travel back in time to visit, you'll need to research the role of agriculture in both dynasties, noting how they were alike and different, and present your key findings on the following questions:
 * Key Questions:**
 * 1) What were the major crops grown in each area?
 * 2) Which animals were domesticated and raised as a food source?
 * 3) Describe the agricultural tools used by each dynasty and the role that human labor played in maintaining a stable food supply.
 * 4) What challenges did each group face? Were they overcome?
 * 5) Which empire should Mr. Deer, a farmer and equipment salesman, visit? Why?

The answers to these questions will culminate in creating a travel poster for each of the two empires. Each poster should be attractive, persuasive, and highlight the major features related to your topic. You will create the posters using Glogster.edu (instructions will be provided in class) and they should contain the following components:

__**Travel Poster Components**__
 * 1) One Glogster.edu poster for each dynasty
 * 2) At least three "must see" tourist features with detailed text and relevant images for each dynasty
 * 3) At least one audio recording on each poster

The oral presentation is your opportunity to share your posters, explain whether your client should visit Han China or the Roman Empire, and should follow these guidelines: = = =Background=
 * 1) Less than three minutes in length
 * 2) Should address/explain the "must see" features of each dynasty
 * 3) Should explain which destination the client should visit and why
 * B efore** you begin the research process, read the following brief overviews from Wikipedia to get a sense of agriculture in Han China and Imperial Rome:

The Han-era Chinese used bronze and iron to make a range of weapons, culinary tools, carpenters' tools and domestic wares.[|[220]] A significant product of these improved iron-smelting techniques was the manufacture of new agricultural tools. The three-legged iron [|seed drill], invented by the 2nd century BCE, enabled farmers to carefully plant crops in rows instead of [|casting seeds out by hand].[|[221]] The heavy moldboard iron [|plow], also invented during the Han Dynasty, required only one man to control it, two oxen to pull it. It had three [|plowshares], a seed box for the drills, a tool which turned down the soil and could sow roughly 45,730 m2 (11.3 acres) of land in a single day.[|[222]]
 * Han China Agriculture**

To protect crops from wind and drought, the Grain Intendant Zhao Guo (趙過) created the alternating fields system (//daitianfa// 代田法) during Emperor Wu's reign. This system switched the positions of [|furrows and ridges] between growing seasons.[|[223]] Once experiments with this system yielded successful results, the government officially sponsored it and encouraged peasants to use it.[|[223]] Han farmers also used the pit field system (//aotian// 凹田) for growing crops, which involved heavily fertilized pits that did not require plows or oxen and could be placed on sloping terrain.[|[224]] In southern and small parts of central Han-era China, [|paddy fields] were chiefly used to grow rice, while farmers along the [|Huai River] used [|transplantation] methods of rice production.[|[225]] Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Dynasty#Metallurgy_and_agriculture

The farm sizes in Rome can be divided into three categories. Small farms were from 18-108 iugera. (One [|iugerum] is equal to about 0.65 acres). Medium-sized farms were from 80-500 iugera. Large estates (called latifundia) were over 500 iugera.[|[3]]
 * Roman Agriculture**

In the late Republican era, the number of [|Latifundia] increased. Wealthy Romans bought land from peasant farmers who could no longer make a living. Starting in the 2nd century B.C (200 BC) the [|Punic Wars] called peasant farmers away to fight for longer periods of time.[|[4]]

Cows provided milk, oxen and mules did the heavy work on the farm. Sheep and goats were cheese producers, but were prized even more for their hides. Horses were not important to most Roman farmers, many were raised by the rich for racing or war. Sugar production centered on beekeeping, and some Romans raised snails as luxury items.[|[3]]

The Romans had four systems of farm management: direct work by owner and his family; tenant farming or [|sharecropping] in which the owner and a tenant divide up a farm’s produce; slaves owned by aristocrats forced to do work and supervised by slave managers; and other situations in which a farm was leased to a tenant.[|[3]] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_agriculture

=The Research Process= Deciding which dynasty your client would be most interested in visiting may seem like a complicated task, but the Big6 can help you organize your research efforts. As you work through the assignment, keep each of the following steps in mind. If you need help, simply follow the hyperlink for more information:

Step 2: Information Seeking Strategies Step 3: Location and Access Step 4: Use of Information Step 5: Synthesis Step 6: Evaluation**
 * Step 1: Task Definition

=Project Workspace= Each student researching this topic will have a project workspace for documenting his/her research and posting the travel poster. All work related to the project should be maintained there:

@Agriculture Student Template DO NOT EDIT THIS PAGE Dylan W Gray C Keever H Teresa S Teddy O Brooks T Libby H Grace I