6th - 8th Grade ELA Standards:
Reading

R1:
Cite relevant textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

A Recipe for Genetics: Selective Breeding and Transgenics: Students will identify technologies that have changed the way humans affect the inheritance of desired traits in organisms; compare and contrast selective breeding methods to genetic engineering techniques; and analyze data to determine the best solution for cultivating selected desired traits in organisms.

At Home on the Range: Students will learn about rangelands by participating in a hands-on activity to grow their own grass to represent a beef or sheep ranch.

Applying Heredity Concepts: Students will complete monohybrid and dihybrid Punnett squares in preparation for taking on a challenge to breed cotton plants that produce naturally blue colored cotton.

Career Trek: Students will explore careers in the fields of agriculture and natural resources through online research. They will check their understanding by playing Career Trek—a board game that requires students to identify careers in agriculture and natural resources.

DNA: Expressions in Agriculture: This lesson centers around the activity of extracting DNA from a strawberry while highlighting careers in biotechnology and agriculture.

Drones in High-Tech Farming: Students will discover the science behind how a drone works, explore how drones are used in agriculture, and program and operate a drone for the purpose of monitoring grazing sheep.

Find Your Future Career: Students will discover the variety of agricultural careers available and consider their career paths in terms of economics, interests, and suitability to their personal talents and characteristics.

FoodMASTER Middle: Cheese: Students will learn about the Law of Conservation of Mass by exploring environmental factors that can impact protein coagulation in milk (cheese-making process). By making qualitative and quantitative observations, they will test three possible methods of making curds and whey.

FoodMASTER Middle: Eggs: Students will learn the anatomy of eggs and the concept of forming colloidal dispersions called foams as they learn the anatomy of an egg, create a foam by whisking egg whites, investigate the effect of whisking time on foam, and compare and contrast the effect of different substances on the stability of foam.

FoodMASTER Middle: Energy Balance: Students will identify the importance of a healthy diet, examine how to meet current Dietary Guidelines, and determine the potential energy (kilocalories) of a peanut through measurements obtained during teacher use of a bomb calorimeter. Students will make comparisons to the actual nutrition facts label and identify possible sources of error.

FoodMASTER Middle: Fats and Oils: Students will explore the fat content of commonly consumed foods, observe physical properties of lipids (margarine, butter and vegetable oil) to distinguish between saturated and unsaturated fat, and observe the action of emulsifiers in heterogeneous and homogenous mixtures.

FoodMASTER Middle: Food Safety: Students will understand water-based state changes that occur at varying temperatures, recognize the importance of the proper hand washing technique for general health and disease prevention, understand the factors that impact mold growth and their application to food safety, and explore ways to prevent foodborne illness.

FoodMASTER Middle: Fruits: Students will learn the concept of enzymatic browning and methods for decreasing enzymatic oxidation by observing three types of fruit. Students will also understand the relationship between oxidation and antioxidants and the role fruits play in health and nutrition.

FoodMASTER Middle: Grains: Students will learn the physical components and nutritional composition of a grain, understand the function of the protein gluten in the structure of bread products, and investigate how mechanical and chemical digestion begins with salivary amylase in the mouth.

FoodMASTER Middle: Milk: Students will understand the nutritional components of milk (carbohydrates) as they test three types of milk for the sugar glucose before and after adding the digestive enzyme lactase to determine which milk(s) contain the sugar lactose. They will also explore the nutritional composition and health benefits of consuming milk, research food sources of calcium, vitamin D, and phosphorus and devise ways to add bone-strengthening food to their diet.

FoodMASTER Middle: Protein: Students will examine dietary sources of protein and generally understand the relationship between protein synthesis and amino acids, while completing an activity to use beads as a representation of amino acids to construct proteins (polypeptide chains). Students will identify complete and/or incomplete proteins found in both animal and plant food sources.

FoodMASTER Middle: Sugar: Students will learn the concept of simple carbohydrates (sugar) in the diet and their role in providing energy to the body, compare saturated sugar solutions, and evaluate the sugar content of common beverages and sugar consumption within their own diet.

FoodMASTER Middle: Vegetables: Students will learn the concept of pH and the impact of acids and bases on plant pigments, explore the impact of acids and bases on plant cell structure, and discover the health benefits of consuming vegetables.

FoodMASTER Middle: Weights and Measures: Students will use common household measurement tools and scientific measurement tools and various methods of measurement to compare for accuracy. Students will also calculate percent error by comparing their measurements to actual values and apply these principles to analyze and decipher the components of a food as indicated on the nutrition facts label.

FoodMASTER Middle: Yogurt: Students will learn the role of bacterial fermentation and evaluate the effect of fat content, sugar content (lactose), and temperature in bacterial fermentation as they make yogurt.

From Foraging to Farming: Students will participate in a foraging activity, gaining perspective on how scarcity of resources can affect well-being and how agriculture provides the benefit of a steady, reliable food supply. Then they will read about hunter-gatherers and early agriculture and use maps to explore how geography affected the development of early civilizations.

Growing Pulses: This lesson introduces agriculture as a managed system that has environmental impacts and how farmers employ practices such as growing pulses to minimize these impacts.

High-Tech Farming: Students will discover technologies that are used on farms to increase efficiency and yields and decrease costs and environmental impact.

Hungry Pests: This lesson teaches about invasive species: what they are, the threats they pose, and damages they can cause. Students will identify individual pests and invasive species and discover what they threaten, where they live, and the pathways hungry pests use to enter new locations. Finally, students move into action and explore what they can do to prevent the spread of invasive species.

In Search of Essential Nutrients: Students will learn the definition of an essential element, compare and contrast the essential nutrient requirements of plants and humans, explain why plants cannot use elemental nitrogen found in the atmosphere, and identify the sources for each essential nutrient needed by plants.

It’s a Dirty Job: Students will create mini habitats to observe earthworm behavior and learn about the important role that earthworms play in decomposition and plant growth.

Let’s Vote On It: Students will hold a mock election to learn the importance of becoming well-informed on the pros and cons of voting measures that affect our local economies, our environment and our quality of life.

Microbes—They’re Everywhere!: Students will explore the varied roles that microorganisms play in the world as well as different methods for controlling their growth. Activities include using a dichotomous key to identify waterborne diseases, comparing effectiveness of hand washing techniques, reading fictional and factual excerpts about microbes, and experimenting with the growth of microorganisms on potato slices.

Robots in High-Tech Farming: Students will discover the four main components of robots, explore how robots are used in agriculture, and program and operate a robot to address a farming challenge.

Science You Can Eat: Students explore the scientific processes used to make the crops we grow and the livestock we raise (commodities) into some of the foods we eat every day. Students will discover how science and technology work together to create foods like pickles, bread, yogurt and more! To engage further in the topic, students will make their own cheese using enzymes produced through the fermentation of genetically engineered yeast.

Serious Cereal Science: Students will develop an appreciation for the extensive materials and career fields provided by agriculture—specifically as related to cereal grain production, processing and consumption. Activities include playing a game in which students become agronomy specialists, mapping the top grain-producing states, and watching videos about careers related to grain production.

Taming the Wild Aurochs: Students will read about and research the domestication of animals to better understand why and how they are raised on a farm. They will create a timeline of animal domestication.

The Great Debate: The Reintroduction of Gray Wolves: Students discover multiple perspectives concerning the reintroduction of gray wolves into the wild by researching pros and cons and participating in a debate.

Think in Pictures: Like Dr. Grandin: Students will explore cattle flight zones and work as agricultural engineers to design a corral system that uses the research of Dr. Temple Grandin.

Water Quality: Students investigate the effects of added soil nutrients on water quality, perform chemical and physical tests on water samples, collect and identify macro invertebrates from a freshwater system and compare physical, chemical and biological factors of an aquatic ecosystem to determine water health.

R2:
Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

Digging into Nutrients: Students will gain background knowledge of the nutrient requirements of plants, how those nutrients are obtained by the plant, what farmers must do if the nutrients are not available in soils, and current issues related to agricultural production.

Overfishing and Aquaculture: Students will discover the sources of various fish and seafood, compare wild-caught and farm-raised aquaculture systems, and use a simulation to learn how overfishing can damage the ocean ecosystem.

Plant Parts and Functions: Students will learn about plant parts and how they function in plant growth and reproduction.

Properties of Soils: Students examine the components of different soils and recognize how sand, silt, and clay particles affect air space and water absorption.

The Environmental Cost of Food: Students examine the environmental footprint of food by discovering factors along the farm-to-fork process that contribute to a food's environmental footprint and discuss possible solutions to create a sustainable future through the foods we eat.

The QUEST for the Whole Enchilada: This lesson utilizes a process learning model to recognize how the Columbian Exchange and early Spanish explorers impacted the culture and cuisine of the Southwest United States. Students will participate in a food lab to make enchiladas and learn about the production of each ingredient.

The Remarkable Ruminant: Students will follow the farm-to-fork process of producing beef, learn how cattle and other ruminants convert grass into nutrient-rich foods such as milk and meat, discover ways cattle recycle food waste, and identify careers in the beef cattle industry.

Use of Biotechnology in Selecting the Right Plants: Students will simulate how a type of biotechnology called Marker Assisted Selection (MAS) is used to identify crop plants that have desirable traits, such as sweet tasting fruit or natural resistance to a pest or disease.

R3:
Analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.

The Right Solution: Students will understand concepts about solutes, solvents, and parts per million as they learn how fertilizer solution is properly calculated and applied.

R4:
Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.

Blue’s the Clue: Souring Milk for Science: This lab introduces students to the effect temperature has on reducing and controlling the growth of bacteria. Students will use conventionally pasteurized and ultra-high-temperature (UHT) milk to observe how different temperatures (hot, room temperature, cool and freezing) affect the growth of spoilage bacteria. They will also learn about the importance of pasteurization in keeping food safe.

Climate Change Phenomena: Bananas in Our Breadbasket?: Students will explore the carbon cycle and evaluate associated phenomena of climate as they discover the impact climate change could have on the farms that produce our food.

Eggs on the Menu: Students will learn the versatility, function, and nutritional benefit of eggs in a healthy diet; identify the function and role of eggs in a recipe; identify forms of technology used on an egg farm; and understand how eggs are classified by size.

Energy and Biofuels: Students explore the process of fermentation in the creation of ethanol and observe the role enzymes play in the fermentation of starch.

From Cow to Carton: Milk's Journey to the Consumer: Students will explore milk production in the United States and explain the benefits of homogenization, pasteurization, and fortification of milk.

Geography and Climate for Agricultural Landscapes: Students will discover how geography and climate influence the crops that are grown and the livestock that is raised in each state.

Healthy Eating Away From Home: This lesson highlights awareness of consuming nutrients and calories away from home, and where to find the calorie and nutrition information for foods available in fast food restaurants. It also highlights how to determine individual calorie needs, as well as the number of calories in a typical fast food meal, and it focuses on dietary goals for saturated fat and sodium.

High-Tech Farming: Students will discover technologies that are used on farms to increase efficiency and yields and decrease costs and environmental impact.

Journey 2050 Lesson 1: Introduction to Sustainable Agriculture: Students will explore the core question, “How will we sustainably feed nearly 10 billion people by the year 2050?” as they discover what sustainable agriculture is and how it is critical to securing a stable food supply and future for a growing population.

Journey 2050 Lesson 2: Soil Nutrients: Students will identify nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus as primary soil nutrients necessary in the production of abundant and healthy foods, describe various methods of replenishing soil nutrients that have been depleted by plant growth, discover how overall plant health impacts a plant’s ability to resist disease and pests, and describe what best management practices are in agriculture to improve overall sustainability.

Journey 2050 Lesson 3: Water: Students will discuss the limited amount of fresh water on earth, identify how best management practices can reduce water consumption, discuss the need for water conservation and protection related to population growth and agriculture, and compare and contrast methods of irrigation for water conservation.

Journey 2050 Lesson 4: Economies: Students will explain why economics are important to sustainability, describe the relationship between a sustainable economy and the environment, develop a model demonstrating how agricultural production creates a ripple effect that impacts local and global economies and social stability, and discuss how investments build an economy.

Journey 2050 Lesson 5: Land Use: Students will recognize that arable land (ideal land for growing crops) is a limited resource, identify best management practices that can be applied to every stakeholder’s land-use decisions, and analyze and discuss the impacts of food waste on our environment.

Journey 2050 Lesson 6: Careers: Students will explore careers related to agriculture, identify personal interests within agriculture or a related field, and discuss how agricultural professionals can impact world food.

Soil and Sustainability: Students are introduced to the Dust Bowl and determine how to avoid another event like it in the future as they study soil texture, particle sizes, soil nutrients, and pH.

The Geography of Thanksgiving Dinner: Students will identify common Thanksgiving foods and their farm source, determine if those foods can be produced locally, and locate the common origins of their Thanksgiving day dinner.

The Right Diet for Your Plants: Students will learn how to read a fertilizer label, understand the components of fertilizers, and explore factors for choosing the appropriate fertilizer for a given situation. Students will use their knowledge and conduct research on one type of soil supplement to design a persuasive product advertisement.

Understanding Bacteria: This lesson introduces students to food safety, the 4 Cs of Food Safety, the Farm-to-Table Continuum, who’s responsible for keeping our food safe, and the link between food safety and other content areas. Students will also be challenged to hypothesize about where most bacteria are found and develop awareness that bacteria are everywhere and that various surfaces might have different levels of organisms.

R5:
Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.

What's the Difference? A Look at Organic and Conventional Foods: Using the claim, evidence and reasoning model, students will compare and contrast organic vs conventionally produced foods to discover the differences and similarities of each farm production style.

R6:
Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.

My Agricultural Connections: Explore how we are each connected to agriculture through our food, clothing, shelter, fuel, and more. Students will be introduced to agriculture and begin to recognize the depth and complexities of agricultural systems locally and globally.

Properties of Soils: Students examine the components of different soils and recognize how sand, silt, and clay particles affect air space and water absorption.

R7:
Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.

Apple Genetics: A Tasty Phenomena: Using the context of apples, students will apply their knowledge of heredity and genetics to distinguish between sexual and asexual reproduction as they explain how new varieties of apples are developed and then propagated to meet consumer demand for a tasty, uniform, consistent product.

Bring Home the Blue, Not the Flu!: Using the context of a county fair livestock show, students investigate how diseases are spread. With a focus on zoonotic disease, students will complete simulations demonstrating the spread of illness and implementation of biosecurity measures as well as complete an online module to deepen understanding of specific diseases and their prevention.

Can We Have Too Much of a Good Thing?: Students will understand that plants require nutrients in the proper concentrations. Students will discover that plants can be damaged or killed by either too many or too few nutrients.

Cheesemaking: A Science, an Art, and a Craft: Students make fresh mozzarella cheese and explore a career as an artisan cheesemaker as they discover the science, art, and craft involved in the development of specialty cheeses.

Growing America: Students determine corn anatomy and function of plant parts, identify stages of plant development in corn, and research how temperature plays a role in corn growth as they calculate growing degree units (GDUs) for a region.

Growing Our State History: Students will discover the connections between agriculture, natural resources and the history of their state.

Hen House Engineering: Students will use the Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning model to evaluate styles of housing used for laying hens in the production of eggs. Using critical thinking skills, students will compare housing styles, determine which system meets their animal welfare standards, and engineer their own hen house model to meet the needs of laying hens.

Photoperiod Phenomena: Students will understand how photoperiodism impacts plants and animals in the environment and learn how egg farms use this science to manage the production of eggs by their hens.

Photosynthesis: Energy’s Journey From Farm to You: Explore photosynthesis to discover how plants obtain energy from the sun and then continue following energy’s path to see how energy can flow through ecosystems to ultimately provide food for humans.

R8:
Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.

Fertilizers and the Environment: Students will recognize that fertile soil is a limited resource to produce food for a growing population, describe the role fertilizer plays to increase food productivity, distinguish between organic and commercial fertilizers, and recognize how excess nutrients are harmful to the environment.

R9:
Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.

R10:
Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently.

Plant-Soil Interactions: Students will recognize that plants remove nutrients from the soil, explain the roles of diffusion and active transport in moving nutrients from the soil to the plant, and relate the root and vascular systems of the plant to the human circulatory system.

6th - 8th Grade ELA Standards:Reading

6th - 8th Grade ELA Standards:
Reading