Teaching Future Ranchers, Farmers and Decision Makers? Climate Change and the Water Cycle, USDA curriculum for 6th - 12th graders in the Southwest

Reposting from USDA Blog Posted by Albert Rango and Caiti Steele, Southwest Regional Climate Hub, on May 19, 2016 at 10:00 AM

Want to teach relevant, experiential projects on climate change and the water cycle to your teen future farmers, ranchers and decision makers?
Here is a new standards-aligned experiential learning curriculum for 10 hours of projects on climate change and the water cycle designed for 6th - 12th graders living in the Southwest.

"USDA has created a curriculum for teaching today’s students about climate change and educating tomorrow’s farmers, ranchers, and decision makers.  The Department’s Southwest Regional Climate Hub has partnered with the Asombro Institute for Science education to build “Climate Change and the Water Cycle,” a scientifically rigorous education unit for 6th -12th grade students.  Intended for both formal and informal educators, the unit includes 9 activities which can either stand alone or be taught over 10 instruction hours.  These hands-on activities are designed to help the students understand the scientific concepts behind different elements of the water cycle, climate change, and how to analyze data and communicate results. "

The Matrix: New Curriculum Resources from Ag in the Classroom

Ag in the Classroom currently reaches 6.5 million school students in the US - and the goal is to reach more.

Here's the USDA blog on the new curriculum Matrix that helps teachers access lesson plans.

Students learn about agriculture by using materials available online through the Ag in the Classroom’s Matrix.
(iStock image- fom USDA Blog)

• Link to Ag in the Classroom: http://www.agclassroom.org/
  
• Access the lessons direct via Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/NationalAITC/

• Click on the Ag in the Classroom's February Resources below - get inspired and take your students out to learn!

A Weed Is a Flower: The Life of George Washington Carver

Soil Samples

About Biotech

Beeswax Modeling Clay Kit

Pollination Simulation Kit

Honey Bees: A Pollination Simulation

• Add agricultural literacy to your academic standards.

Apples for the Teachers

Apples

Apples may be on the menu for lunch or snack at school today. Chances are your school computer might also be named after one. What are the latest go-to tools for teaching about apples?

Here is the video link to Apples in the How Does It Grows series by Nicole Jolly.
This is the "first of its kind series" that follows food from farm to fork.

Watch the 5-minute video at any season. 
Then extend the learning for your students’ age group.

Study a fruit tree

Ornamental Cherry Tree
 Gunston Middle School, Arlington

• Take your class out in the spring to study an apple tree, or visit a fruit tree from the same Rosacea (rose) family; such as a cherry, plum, almond or pear. 
• Observe the flowers and leaves of your fruit tree. Count the petals on the flower. Look at the leaf shape and edge. Can you see how the fruit is forming?
• Visit the same fruit tree over the following months. Study how the fruit ripens. 
• What else do you find evidence of living on and near the tree?
• How does a tree produce its own food, and get water and nutrients?
• How does the tree grow in the spring, and summer and fall, and then conserve energy in the winter? 
• How does the tree fit in our ecosystem? 

Taste a fruit

Farm to School Day
Arlington, Fall 2014

• Feature locally grown, fresh apples as part of a Farm-to-School program.
• Visit a local orchard or fruit farm.
• Check out nutrition facts and some recipes.
  Why do we say, "An apple a day...keeps the doctor away"?

Link to Pollinators

The How it Grows: Apples film states that 100 hives of bees are needed to cross-pollinate the 27,500 apple trees in the Lyman’s 100-acre apple orchard. 

• Extend your study of apple family trees to pollinators, including both native bees and honeybees too.
• Research the latest discussions, science and politics of crop pollination. For example, discuss pollination of the almond crop in California.

Apples: history, myth and inspiration

Apples (1975) by Don Moulton
Portland ME Museum of Art

• Research the apple in religion, myth, storytelling and history including: Adam and Eve, the Golden Apples, Newton, Johnny Appleseed, Apple Corps.  and the Apple Inc. computer brand name and logo? 
• Design your own apple and name it
• What product would you name after a fruit and why? 
• Do you like playing Bananagrams or Appleletters? 

These are all questions to mull over while you munch an apple slice or two, 

or choose to reach for a banana. 

As Greek fairy tales say:

" Three apples have fallen from the sky; one is for me; one is for him who listens; and the third is for him who tells this tale."

Resources for apples as teaching tools:

How Does it Grow http://www.howgrow.org/
Red Tomato/Eco Apple http://www.redtomato.org/eco-apple/
US Apple Association http://usapple.org
Apple Activities for 4-6 grade http://usapple.org/PDF/4-6guide.pdf 
Apple Activities for PreK - 3 http://usapple.org/PDF/p-3.pdf 
How Apples Grow by Betsy Maestro (for elementary age students)
Farm to School http://www.farmtoschool.org/
Garden to Snack/Classroom e.g. in Charlottesville, VA  http://www.cityschoolyardgarden.org/2015/01/22/seasonal-snacks-from-garden-to-classroom/

Pollinators: Bee Basics An Introduction to Our Native Bees by Beatriz Moisset et al.
https://pollinator.org/PDFs/BeeBasicsBook.pdf
Intro to USDA research on pollinators http://www.ars.usda.gov/Research/docs.htm?docid=24105

Fairy Tales of Greece, Retold by Ronald Seth, 1961

Container Gardening at Schools: Make Your Own Mobile Planter, Buy Earthboxes and Tower Gardens - and Lesson Plans

Got some blacktop playground, 28 or so students and wondering how to garden?

Make Your Own Mobile Planter
Here's a YouTube from The People's Garden, and USDA experts at a DC school, working to make a mobile planter at a DC elementary school - from a 100 gallon plastic tank....

http://youtu.be/FoNneXBW4BI


EarthBox
Not feeling crafty - and haven't got time to make a "self-watering" planter?
Then you can buy smaller EarthBoxes for about $60 online at http://earthbox.com/

Tower Gardens
If going outside seems too difficult and you want to maximize success for indoor gardening - try a Tower Garden https://www.towergarden.com/ 
Growing veggies, herbs and flowers aeroponically without soil might just be the approach that you need to get your class going growing. The tower is easy to assemble and works with very little water/nutrients and a recirculation pump.  You can then grow vegetables indoors at a time that suits you and your class. Costs about $ 550 - 1000 for the full kit.

See how the Tower Garden works commercially at Chicago's O'Hare airport - delivering fresh local produce to airport staff and travelers.





Easy Care Native Plants for Low-Watering
The tank mobile planters, EarthBoxes and Tower Gardens work well for growing vegetables and flowers.
If you are not at school during the summer and need low-maintenance watering - try planting your Earthbox or planter with native plants such as Rudbeckia Black-eyed Susan and Echinacea Purple Coneflowers. These flowers will attract lots of pollinators and are "easy-care".

Lesson Plans
Got the box and now wondering what to teach?
Earthbox sells curricula pre-K-12 linked to standards and STEM
http://earthbox.com/edu-curricula-guides

With your Tower Garden - check out ideas for teaching from Stephen Ritz and the Green Bronx Machine http://greenbronxmachine.org/