Arcadia Public Library

When Esperanza and Mama are forced to flee to the bountiful region of Aguascalientes, Mexico, to a Mexican farm labor camp in California, they must adjust to a life without the fancy dresses and servants they were accustomed to on Rancho de las Rosas. Now they must confront the challenges of hard work, acceptance by their own people, and economic difficulties brought on by the Great Depression. When Mama falls ill and a strike for better working conditions...

From land reform to scientific farming techniques to new farm technology, explore the factors that transformed agricultural production in Europe and the United States. Topics include how America became the world's dominant agricultural power, the peasant rights that came from the French Revolution, and how farmers used new practices like crop-rotation systems.

Do you ever stop and wonder what's on YOUR plate? Discover what's on the new MyPlate food icon developed by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). This video is an overview of good food choices and the MyPlate food guide that highlights the best choices from each food group. Includes interviews with teens about their favorite healthy foods. 22 minutes Closed captioned Grade 6 - Adult

Mining is one of the oldest applications of practical geology. Find out how metals are classified and how most are associated with igneous and metamorphic deposits. Some metals, like gold, can be mined in a pure—"native"—state that requires little processing. Discover how and where to go prospecting for gold, using the panning process perfected by the Forty-Niners in California.

Consider another city at the edge of the empire - an agricultural community comprised of a diverse population. Here you'll learn about the farm-based economy and its relationship to the consumer city of Rome, and you'll examine the integration of Greek, Roman, and Egyptian ethnic groups.

An account of all the new and surprising evidence now available for the beginnings of the earliest civilizations that contradict the standard narrative. Why did humans abandon hunting and gathering for sedentary communities dependent on livestock and cereal grains, and governed by precursors of today's states? Most people believe that plant and animal domestication allowed humans, finally, to settle down and form agricultural villages, towns, and...

You could spend a lot of money trying to keep slugs, rats, moles, rabbits, squirrels, deer, and other herbivores out of your garden. But most of those purchases would have little, if any, value, especially if feeding pressure is high in the surrounding habitat. Learn about the few options that are both safe and effective. And remember, "man's best friend" might be your garden's best friend, too.

Etosha National Park, at over 2.2 million acres, is one of the largest game reserves for wildlife in Africa. Here viewers are in for a rare treat as hosts Jake and Mieke DeBoer take them along on their own personal safari. We discover the heart of the park is called Etosha Pan, or "place of dry water," a huge, shallow depression surrounded by scrub and grassland that serves as home to elephants, rhinos, lions, cheetahs, giraffes, antelope, hyenas...

Blaming herself for a patient's death and fleeing her hospital job, Dr. Jo Banks accepts a position as a visiting doctor to a group of small hotels and becomes unwittingly involved in the murders of a group of itinerant farm workers.

Private detective Sharon McCone investigates the violent incidents that are plaquing the reconstruction of a Victorian mansion, once the home of a wealthy agricultural baron, on Appleby Island