Farmers, their animals and the environment

Educational value

• This resource is of considerable value for the science curriculum in year 10. It is relevant to content descriptions about how the transmission of heritable characteristics from one generation to the next involves DNA and genes, and how advances in science and emerging sciences and technologies can significantly affect people's lives. The commentary reveals how people in the early 2000s were coming to grips with the implications of gene technology for livestock breeding, in particular the need to identify, classify and preserve not only the genetic diversity of indigenous animals but also the local people's knowledge of their animals' heritable characteristics.
• The resource is also of use for the Science as a Human Endeavour strand in years 7 and 8, especially the content description about how science understanding influences the development of practices in areas of human activity such as agriculture. The video shows that this can be a two-way process, with long-established traditional knowledge influencing the science understanding of desirable heritable characteristics.
• The video is also of value for the year 9 geography unit of study Biomes and food security, especially for the content description about the capacity of the world's environments to sustainably feed the projected future population to achieve food security for the world. The video's underlying message is that the genetic diversity developed in domesticated animals indigenous to local environments is a rich endowment that can help feed the world.

Year level

7; 8; 9; 10

Topics Technologies Soil degradation Animal husbandry Environmental management Sustainable development Breeding Artificial selection Ionic bonding Water resources Heredity Climate change Innovation DNA Food availability Native species Genetic variation Livestock farmers