Curriculum
Explore, download and share these proven real-world educational resources to help bring science and agriculture to life in your classroom. Relevant and engaging, you’ll find useful, easy-to-implement lesson plans and activities.
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Oh soy good! Milk types and food security
How might soymilk, and other types of milk, help ensure food security? Investigate various milk sources and their composition through core disciplines of Science, Math, Social Studies and Language Arts to discover the availability of milk types within multiple cultures …
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Managing nutrient and pesticide needs in agriculture
Why do farmers spend time and money to apply chemicals to their fields? In this threaded PBL*, (an effort to integrate agricultural understandings into the normal sequence of an Environmental Science classroom) students will conduct several “close reads” (reading for …
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Hula hoop math: yield prediction
Can we predict the yield of a crop and forecast food production? Use hula hoops and math to predict how many bushels of soybeans are growing in a particular field. This fun activity was tested with 500 6th graders from Newark City Schools at the Devine Farms in …
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Where does our food come from, anyway? Sustainable ag systems
How do growers’ decisions affect the sustainability of agricultural systems? Understand and appreciate food producers through this case study and determine what decisions must be made on a yearly, monthly, or daily basis to maintain an environmental system that will continue …
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Maintaining our yield: assessing biotic and abiotic factors
How do biotic and abiotic factors affect populations? Create experiments to test how abiotic factors impact soybean germination, go into the field and laboratory to determine the impact of aphid populations on soybeans, and experiment with aphid …
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Biochar: producing bioenergy from waste
How can a waste stream become part of a cyclical system? Make biochar, a soil amendment, by making and using a model top light updraft (TLUD) pyrolysis kiln or oven.
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Are you sterile? Using sterile technique to tissue culture plants
How do sterilization techniques affect our ability to preserve and culture organisms? In vitro collecting (IVC) is the process of starting plant tissue cultures with minimal disturbance to the plants when viable seeds are not available. Become the field researcher and learn how to …
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Soybeans as a chemical feedstock
Can agriculture provide greener, more sustainable products? Soybeans contain several components which innovators and entrepreneurs find valuable when creating greener products. What are the chemical building blocks in a soybean?
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Plant inhibition
Why do some plants grow and some do not? Participate in a simulation that shows how various factors influence plant growth and what role probability plays. Powerpoint with instructions and information included.
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Soybeans: from ballast to biotech
What is the future of biotechnology? Create models to understand DNA and the gene transfer process used in biotechnology. Explore questions: Are there harmful side effects of biotechnology? Can biotech solve world hunger? Should GMO …
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Growing more food: biotechnology
How will we feed 9 billion people? Grow soybeans using Round-Up Ready seeds to illustrate how biotechnology can be used as a tool to increase production. Introduce students to different options for growing soybeans, investigate …