Concept - The life cycle of a local product
Names of research team: Stefanie Kunz, Simone Etter, Tamara Keller
Project idea / topic: The life cycle of a local product
Our Questions, we want to answer with our project:
- Which steps are necessary to produce an apple?
- How and when will the apples be picked from the tree?
- How big or small is the ecological footprint of this production and its impact on the climate?
- How do our results look like, compared with another country?
In general, we want to analyse what is needed to provide this product in the grocery store.
What kind of methods and techniques will we use to answer our questions:
With our project, we want to work out a life cycle of a local product. We decided to choose the life cycle of an apple. We would like to work out the project in the following way:
Methods and Time plan:
- Research, search information about the plant and its lifecycle, the production and its way to the grocery store
- Walk through the apple plantation on the farm of Tamara’s parents, receive some information about the plant and what it needs to produce an apple
- Interview with the agricultural college in Lindau, ask them about the ecological footprint and the impact on the climate
- Interview with a major distributor for example migros and ask them what they have for rules and how they decide which apple can be provided in their grocery stores
- Short summary about the product with pictures and information about the plant
- Overview and comparison of our information about the ecological footprint and the impact on the climate. How would it looks like, if we would eat less or more apples? How big or small is the impact on the climate compared with other products?
Divers / source of information:
- Experience of fruit farmer, the agricultural college and the major distributor
- internet
- Documents of the agricultural college
(- Experiences of other countries)
Material:
- Good equipment to take some photographs
- Computer
- dictaphone to record the interviews
- Paper an writing material
Time plan and responsibility:
- Research online (CW 45) (All team members)
- Walk through the apple plantation (CW 46) (All team members)
- Prepare the questions for the interviews (CW 47 – 48) for example Stefanie and Simone do the preparation for the interview with the major distributor and Tamara does the preparation for the interview with the agricultural college, mutual agreement)
- Interview with the agricultural college and the major distributor (CW 49) (Stefanie and Simone, major distributor / Tamara, agricultural college)
- Create an overview of the information about the ecological footprint and the impact on the climate as well as information of the major distributor (CW 50 – 51) (Stefanie and Simone, major distributor / Tamara information about the ecological footprint and the impact on the climate)
(- Create a comparison with other countries (CW 50 – 51) (All team members))
- Write a summary of our results (CW 50 – 51) (All team members)
Apples are one of the most popular fruits on earth. Many people buy regularly apples and because of that, we want to analyse what is required that we are able to buy apples. We would be also very interested in comparing our information with another country. It would be very exciting to know how people in other countries produce their apples and what they need for the production.