How can we improve the efficiency of irrigation by using, rather than battling, gravity? That is at the heart of a challenge school kids can tackle this fall and potentially win prizes.
Purple Plow, an educational project of the American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture, recently announced its latest challenge for students in grades five through 12 — “Water Wise Farms: Gravity in Action.” The challenge asks participating students or classrooms to design irrigation systems to deal with the real-world problem of water management on sloped farmland.
“Purple Plow Challenges are designed to create authentic learning experiences for students,” Julia Recko, managing director of AFBFA, tells The Packer.
“They have students research a real agricultural issue — for this challenge, it’s irrigation — design and test a solution, and present their findings, helping to build critical skills in leadership and problem-solving.”
Recko says Purple Plow and AFBFA chose irrigation for this year’s challenge to focus on water use. The challenge page and its accompanying materials for students and teachers note that roughly 70% of all freshwater withdrawals around the world are for agricultural use. She also characterized the challenge as designed to be crop-agnostic and as an engaging learning opportunity to get kids interested in agriculture.
Meghan Shamdasani, career and technical education coordinator at SouthTech Academy in Boynton Beach, Fla., and teacher of one of the 2023 winning teams, called the experience a fun, engaging way to incorporate agricultural awareness into the STEM classroom in Purple Plow’s announcement of the new challenge.
“Students apply real-world problem-solving skills to agricultural challenges,” Shamdasani says. “One of their favorite parts is integrating social media platforms into their projects to share their process, promote agricultural awareness, and showcase innovative solutions to authentic issues facing the industry.”
Challenge logistics
Those interested in participating in the challenge have until 12:00 a.m. on Dec. 2 to submit their entries. Individual students, teams, or whole classrooms can participate. There are two categories of participants: junior for participants in grades five through eight, and senior for participants in grades nine through twelve.
Purple Plow’s challenge page includes a full suite of resources for participants and their teachers, including a challenge guide for students, a content packet for teachers with background content plus a PowerPoint presentation, design frameworks for one-week and multiweek challenges, the challenge’s rubric and the required student reflection sheet.
According to Purple Plow, participating students will “learn to apply key scientific principles, prototyping strategies and design thinking to solve that exact problem. Creators will craft solutions that deliver water where it’s needed most, using techniques like drip lines, channel adjustments or engineered terrain modifications.”
Submissions are judged according to a rubric that prioritizes demonstrated understanding and in-depth discussion of the challenge’s key elements. For example, an exemplary entry will include multiple trials of a design or simulation, showing a clear testing and revision process, and the accompanying documentation will clearly explain in detail how the trials connect with real-world irrigation issues and the supporting evidence.
Recko says winning participants or teams can also get more than just a learning experience from participation.
“Winners are gifted either a 3D printer or their teacher can choose an Amazon gift card to help them purchase resources for future science projects,” she says. Winning teams and/or their teacher can also opt to be featured in the Purple Plow blog.
