Tech-agriculture History ESCAPE

Tech- agriculture Land

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Notes about the history of technology in agriculture

Use it with caution

The history of agriculture goes back several thousand years and its development was led and determined to a large extent by climate differences, cultures and the technology that exists in them.

On the other hand, in economics, productivity is a measure of technological progress, and increases when fewer resources (energy, labor, materials, or land) are used to produce a unit of output. As another indicator of technological progress we can treat the emergence of new products and services, something necessary to reduce unemployment that would otherwise arise from reducing the amount of work that society needs.

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The term technology, is a combination of the Greek word "techne" that means "art/craft" with the word "logos" that means in Greek language "speech”. Thus it means a discourse on the arts.

On thIs learning activity we'll travel to the history of technology and will try to indentify how that was inextricably linked to food and agriculture and which is technology's role nowdays.. Click the drawing to see your missions!!

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But what does the term technology mean?

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Paleolithic period

Age of metals

20th century

Middle ages to Industrial Revolution

Missions

Neolithic period

Paleolithic period

(The period of use of stone tools) Even in these years, technology was inextricably linked to food, as the first important technologies were ways of survival, hunting and food preparation. This period covers the entire human prehistory until the spread of agriculture (late Stone Age)

1

Mission

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(watch until 4 : 36)

What did early humans in the Lower Paleolithic Age eat?

large animals killed for meat

collected seafood, eggs, nuts, and fruits besides scavenging..

Let's go!

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What did Stone Age people eat?

plant products from their gardens

wild fruits and vegetables, meat from the animals they killed

meat from animals they hunted

mmm

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How technology was used in that Age?

to harvest.

to make tools for survival, and hunting.

mmm

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This will be added to your backpack..You will need that to be able to survive during the days you spend on this land

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You've got an axe maybe it will be useful

Woow!!

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Paleolithic period

Age of metals

Neolithic period

20th century

Middle ages to Industrial Revolution

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Missions

Neolithic Period

The people of the New Stone Age used stone for tools, but we seperate these eras because in New Stone Age the Earth's climate was warmer than the climate in the Old Stone Age. As the Earth warmed, the population of people and animals increased; people decided to stay in one place.; learned to grow their own crops, rather than search for wild berries and grains.; learnt to train animals to be useful to humans.

2

Mission

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Neolithic Age

Watch the video so as to respond correctly on the following right and false questions.

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Man discovered agriculture by chance.

Which one is correct?

Man was thinking a lot about how to solve eating problems so he discovered agriculture.

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Early farmers were planting only wheat and barley.

Early farmers were willing to experiment with different plants and techniques.

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Which one is correct?

They still hunted wild animals as livestock farming wasn't discovered.

The wild sheep, goats, cows, and pigs were gradually domesticated, exploited not just for their meat, but also for their skins, wool and eventually their milk.

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Which one is correct?

The invention of the driven plows is the most remarkable of this era.

The invention of the wheel is the most remarkable of this era.

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Which one is correct?

This will be added to your backpack.You will need it during the days you spend on this land

Yeah!

You've got a wheel, maybe it will be useful

Awesome!!

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Paleolithic period

Age of metals

20th century

Middle ages to Industrial Revolution

Missions

Neolithic period

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Food

Age of metals

Age of metals

3

Mission

Then, in the Iron Age, which is characterized by the invention of the shaft furnace, the metallurgy of iron began, which enabled the construction of stronger and cheaper tools. The rate of land clearing using the most efficient iron tools has accelerated, providing more land for agriculture to feed the growing human population.Thus technology enabled human civilization to concentrate labor and land to the sole purpose of food production on an ever-increasing scale.

The Neolithic period evolved into the Bronze Age that favored the development of copper metallurgy and later brass.

Iron Age technology was applied to agriculture in the form of the iron (or iron-tipped) plowshare, which opened up the possibility of deeper plowing and of cultivating heavier soils..

Here we go!!

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Iron Age technology was also applied to agriculture in the form of extensive irrigation systems, using the Archimedean screw and the noria (an animal- or water-powered scoop wheel) to raise water.

Almost there!!

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That will be added to your backpack.You will need that during the days you spend on this land

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You've got a sickle, maybe it will be useful

keep it up!!

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Paleolithic period

Age of metals

Neolithic period

20th century

Middle ages to Industrial Revolution

Missions

Backpack

Middle ages to Industrial Revolution

Medieval Europe greatly increased productivity due to the replacement of the ox by the hors,e introduction of new crops, developing industries, and the practice of using waterpower to drive fulling stocks. Soap making by decomposing animal or vegetable fats by boiling them with a strong alkali was one of the first industrial processes to make extensive use of coal as a fuel.

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Mission

By that ages technology was defined by such phrases as “the means or activity by which man seeks to change or manipulate his environment”. The advancement of science during the Renaissance led to the Scientific Revolution, after which science and technology began a cycle of mutual conquests. The Industrial Revolution period was consisted of experimenting with new machines and processes so as to improve the productivity of estates. (e.g. the use of steam engine to threshing machines) That perios food processing, food-packing and canning industries were also grown.The introduction of refrigeration techniques made it possible to convey meat; made it possible to grow the dairy farming as dairy products could be preserved or/and transferred by refrigerated ships.

Incorrect

Correct

The steam engine was not readily adapted for agricultural purposes

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the Industrial Revolution period

the middle age period

Food-packing greatly improved during

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Incorrect

Correct

The introduction of refrigeration techniques made it possible to convey meat, and increase the dairy farming

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That will be added to your backpack.You will need that during the days you spend on this land

Yeah!

You've got a lantern, maybe it will be useful

Oh yeah!!

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Paleolithic period

Age of metals

Neolithic period

20th century

Middle ages to Industrial Revolution

Missions

Wait, take a look in your backpack

Check items in your backpack and use the flashlight to look for the code to access the last mission that will allow you to leave this land.

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Code:1234

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20th century

By the early 20th century the term embraced a growing range of means, processes, and ideas in addition to tools and machines. The concept of "scientific agriculture" speculated about the role of chemistry in agriculture; the concepts of inheritance and Mendelian genetics stimulated the biological basis for modern agriculture, resulting to an increased food production, but also to a reduced number of individuals directly involved in food production/processing..

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Mission

Farming was transformed in response to the demand for more food; scientific farming, with its careful breeding, controlled feeding, and mechanized handling, became commonplace. The quality and quantity of food produced was rapidly increased as a result of the intensive application of modern technology. The increasing chemical understanding of drugs and microorganisms was applied with outstanding success to the study of food. The analysis of the relationship between certain types of food and human physical performance led to the identification of vitamins in 1911 and to their classification in 1919. The importance of trace elements was also discovered in 1895. The internal-combustion engine was utilized in the tractor, combine harvesters, etc. Synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, and the introduction ofDDT were a particularly significant achievement of chemical technology.

New food-producing techniques such as aquaculture and hydroponics, advanced—dehydration techniques such as vacuum-contact drying were introduced in the 1930s—but the 19th-century innovations of canning and refrigeration remained the dominant techniques of preservation.

The technological dilemma

That was the first time that people made the conclussion that the indiscriminate or inappropriate use of chemical and biological technology, can clearly produce negative consequences to the ecosystem . Modern agriculture, the development of hybrids, herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers and other technological improvements has quantitatively increased crops from agriculture, but at the same time caused widespread ecological damage to the environment and had several negative effects on human health. Extensive livestock farming has also increased meat production, but has created problems related to cruelty to animals, damage to human health from the misuse of antibiotics, growth hormones and other chemicals by the meat industry.Thus if we asked to summarize the role of technology in agriculture nowdays we could consider a technology that increases the agricultural productivity in a sustainable way, having as central issue the preservation of nonrenewable resources.

Drag the ELEMENTS to find the way to complete the mission and leave.

Agriculture has seen many revolutions, whether the domestication of animals and plants a few thousand years ago, the systematic use of crop rotations and other improvements in farming practice a few hundred years ago, or the “green revolution” with systematic breeding and the widespread use of man-made fertilizers and pesticides a few decades ago. Agriculture is undergoing a fourth revolution triggered by the exponentially increasing use of information and communication technology (ICT) in agriculture.

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REMEMBER: Smart farming is key to developing sustainable agriculture

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https://www.britannica.com/technology/history-of-technology

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