Overview
After 140 years of a successful sugarcane industry in Hawaii, the last sugarcane plantation stopped harvesting the crop in 2016. Sugarcane is grown as a monocrop, meaning it is the only thing grown on land dedicated to sugarcane. While most of the former sugarcane land is now being developed for tourism, the largest and last sugarcane producing company, Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar (HC&S), has decided to continue farming the land with multiple crops. One of HC&S’s biggest struggles however is how to remediate the soil for growth after years of sugarcane monocropping left the soil severely depleted. After determining the most effective soil remediation plan HC&S would like to continue contributing to the Hawaiian economy by providing food and new agricultural production to the Hawaiian people.
Objective
Students will work in groups to jigsaw together the pros and cons of monocropping, soil remediation and Hawaiian sugarcane by each learning about one of these topics and then teaching each other what they learned in order to form a more complete picture. The purpose of this lesson is to introduce students to the concepts of monocropping and soil remediation through the historical perspective of Hawaii’s sugarcane industry..
Grade level
7-12
Subjects
Environmental science, Earth science, biology, history, economics
Estimated time
One 40 to 50-minute period
Materials
- Pens and paper
- PBS News Hour Student Reporting Lab video
- An actual piece of sugarcane (optional)
- One copy of each of the following handouts per group:
Procedure:
- Have students sit in groups of four
- Prior to showing the video, tell students to see if they can identify and write down five main ideas presented in the video.
- Show the video
- Before you do anything else, have the kids write down two questions that came up for them either during or after watching the video on a separate sheet of paper to be handed in.
- Briefly have the students share with their group what they think the main ideas are. Then either the teacher elicits the main ideas and writes them on the board, or even better, the students write their ideas on the board themselves and the class will agree or disagree.
- Give each group the set of four handouts and tell them to each select one of the articles that they find interesting based on the titles only. Next tell the students they are each responsible for understanding and sharing their part of the sugarcane story so they need to take notes that will help them explain what they have read. The students then read their articles (timing this part of the lesson will obviously depend on the age of the students and their reading/comprehension levels).
- Have the students share out to their group, one at a time, what they learned from the articles while the others take notes on what they are learning.
- Have students try to write down the answers to their initial questions, as well as something they learned from each of their teammates, and then hand in their papers.
- Summarize what the students just learned by having them share out their thoughts.
This lesson was originally published on December 9, 2018, and updated on July 2, 2026.
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