This is one of 30 lessons from the NSTA Press book Scientific Argumentation in Biology. The lesson engages students in an argumentation cycle based on an engaging scenario in which their group is a farm family trying to survive a dust bowl winter with limited food and water resources. The family has a bull, a cow, and limited amounts of water and wheat. Students are presented with four options that include various combinations of eating or keeping the animals alive and eating the wheat. Within this scenario, the lesson provides data on nutritional requirements of cows and humans, along with nutritional contents of wheat, milk, and beef. Students then use this data to construct an argument for the best strategy to allow their family to survive. As they construct this argument, students build and apply knowledge of food chains, trophic levels, interdependence among organisms, and energy transfers within ecosystems. This lesson is intended for middle or high school students. Teachers are encouraged to refer to the preface, introduction, student assessment samples, and appendix provided in the full book for important background on the practice of argumentation and resources for classroom implementation.