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Colorado Agriculture in the Classroom

Agricultural Literacy Curriculum Matrix

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Lesson Plans (16)

Enjoying the Harvest

Students identify the parts of a wheat plant and wheat kernel and investigate the process of milling wheat kernels into flour. Grades 3-5

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. Grades 6-8

FoodMASTER: Grains

Students describe the steps of making flour, compare the nutritional value of different cereals, compare cooked and uncooked rice, and identify the parts of a whole grain. Grades 3-5

Growing Grains

Students investigate a variety of grains, discover how and where they are grown, and explore their nutritional benefits. Grades 3-5

Growing a Nation Era 3: Prosperity and Challenges

Students engage with the Growing a Nation timeline to explore the significant historical and agricultural events and inventions from American history during the years 1950-1969. Students examine the cause and effect relationships of many post-war advances that took place in our country and discover how increases in science and technology changed agriculture, leading to fewer farmers being necessary to provide food and fiber. Grades 9-12

Little Red Hen

Students use the story The Little Red Hen to investigate wheat production and bread making. Students thresh their own wheat and grind it into flour to make bread. Grades K-2

Pancakes! (Grades 3-5)

Students describe the physical properties of materials and observe physical and chemical changes as they examine the ingredients in pancakes and how maple syrup is harvested from trees. Grades 3-5

Pancakes! (Grades K-2)

Students describe the physical properties of materials and observe physical and chemical changes as they explore the ingredients in pancakes and how maple syrup is harvested from trees. Grades K-2

Pizza Time!

Students use pizza as a basis for exploring agriculture, geography, and mathematics. Grades 3-5

Right This Very Minute

Students read Right This Very Minute—a table-to-farm book about food production and farming—and diagram the path of production for a processed product, study a map to discover where different commodities are grown, and write a thank-you letter to farmers in their local community. Grades 3-5

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. Grades 6-8

The Green Revolution

Evaluate the agricultural advances of the Green Revolution, discover the contributions of Norman Borlaug, and discuss the impacts of this era from an economic, social, political, and environmental perspective. Grades 9-12

Wheat Germ DNA

Using wheat as an example, students explore how DNA determines the genetic traits of a plant and how plant breeders change the DNA of a plant to produce desired characteristics. Grades 3-5

Wheat and Dolls

Students investigate how wheat is grown and processed into flour and other wheat products and create wheat puppets to perform a play. Grades 3-5

Wheat: Ancient and Ageless

Students will explore the importance of wheat in the development of culture by learning about the advent of agriculture, discussing wheat cultivation in ancient Egypt, threshing a head of wheat with their hands, and making a corn dolly out of wheat stems. Grades 6-8

Where Does It Come From?

Students explore the connection between geography, climate, and the type of agriculture in an area by reading background information and census data about the agricultural commodities beef, potatoes, apples, wheat, corn, and milk. Grades 3-5

Companion Resources (51)

Activity
Bread in a Bag
This activity details the instructions for making bread in a Ziploc bag. An excellent way to demonstrate bread-making and the properties of yeast within a classroom setting.
Let's Get Growing!
Let's Get Growing! tells the story of Iowa native Dr. Norman Borlaug, whose research developed wheat that could grow in harsh conditions and feed hungry people worldwide. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for saving billions of people from starvation. Learn about him, sing some fun songs, and tell the story of his remarkable life in this easy musical. Included are additional resource suggestions and famous Borlaug quotes. Available online from JWPepper.com, materials for purchase and download include score, recordings for rehearsal use, and piano accompaniment tracks for performance.
The Very Hungry Western Caterpillar
Based off of Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar, this caterpillar takes a journey through the Western United States as he eats some of the most popular agriculture commodities in each state. This book can be made individually by students or used as a classroom copy. 
Wheat Weaving: How to Make a Corn Dolly
Students will learn about the history of weaving with straw and make their own woven wheat ornaments, traditionally known as "corn dollies." The art of weaving with wheat stems (straw) is practically as old as wheat itself. Traditionally, corn dollies were made using the last stems of harvested grain. Wheat was most common, but oats, rye, barley, and corn were also used. The woven ornaments with the heads of grain still on the stem were hung on inside walls where they made it safely through the winter. These sacred grains were then planted the next season to ensure the fertility of the entire crop.
Book
A True Book: Wheat
This book provides an accurate and comprehensive look at wheat. From its early cultivation thousands of years ago through today, the text and photos tell wheat's story. The book covers the planting, harvesting, and milling of wheat and ends with a useful glossary.
Bread Comes to Life
This book tells the story and includes photographs depicting the process of planting and growing wheat, processing it into flour, and then baking it into bread.
Bread Lab!
It's a sleepy Saturday morning for most people, but not for Iris, who has to feed her many pets before Aunt Mary arrives. Iris likes to call Aunt Mary "Plant Mary" because she is a plant scientist. Today Aunt Mary wants to experiment with making whole wheat sourdough bread from scratch! As the family kitchen transforms into a bread lab, Iris is surprised that bread needs only four ingredients—flour, water, salt, and starter. She also learns about the invisible microbes that make the dough rise, and how flour comes from wheat grown by farmers. It all seems magical, but it's really science.  Check out the Explore the WSU Bread Lab video. In this video, students will meet Kim Binczewski, co-author of Bread Lab!, as she and King Arthur Baking School Instructor Leah Starr ddemonstrate making bread and explore the bread lab, milling room, and seed library at Washington State University. You can also hear from Kim Binczewski, managing director of WSU Breadlab and co-author of Bread Lab!, provide a message for kids who would like to turn their home kitchen into their very own bread lab in this video.
Bread is for Eating
A bilingual, rhythmic celebration of bread, from farmer to baker. This playful, English-Spanish children's book traces the process and production of traditional South American bread making from harvest, to crafting, to packaging, and its sale on the market.
Bread, Bread, Bread
Bread is a food enjoyed by people in all parts of the world. Its many shapes, sizes, textures, and colors are as varied as the people who eat it. This photographic round-the-world tour provides a glimpse into the rich variety of world cultures, as well as an informative look at an important food.
Combines: with Casey & Friends
Combines introduces children to the world of modern farm equipment- showing how the most complex machines on the farm work to harvest crops. This book is filled with colorful action photographs, fun illustrations and a cast of cartoon equipment characters. Students can follow the timeline of harvesting equipment from the sickle to the mechanical reaper, international harvester, and eventually the modern-day combine. As a companion to lessons on grain crops such as corn and wheat, students will learn the process of harvesting these crops.
Everybody Bakes Bread
On a rainy Saturday, what is better to do than to bake bread? Carrie and her brother bicker so much that their mother sends Carrie on a fool's errand to borrow a rolling pin. Each house she stops at a new kind of bread is offered to her and by the time she returns home the bread is ready at her house. This tummy warming story is both informational and fun for families to enjoy together as each new kind of bread represents a household of a different culture.
Farms Feed the World
A simple introduction to the beauty and variety of farms from a wheat field in Montana to a rice paddy in Indonesia to the harvesting of seaweed from the ocean, to corn, pigs, and wool on farms around the world. Through simple text and stunning photographs, this book shows how farmers provide the world with food and fiber.
From Start to Finish Series
Books from this series teach how objects are made, how nature's cycles work, and how food is produced—from start to finish. Suitable for both struggling and on-level readers, these titles teach science concepts as well as sequential thinking. These books are an excellent supplement to lessons teaching elementary students about the importance of agriculture and how food and fiber gets from the farm to their home.
From Wheat to Bread
Provides an introduction to the basic concepts of food production, distribution, and consumption by tracing the production of bread from wheat.
Glorious Grasses: The Grains
This book covers early history, cultivation, processing, and nutritional importance of grains. One chapter is dedicated to each grain, including wheat, rice, corn, millet and barley, and oats and rye. The two-column text reads easily and is full of informative material.
Heartland
Here, in their second stunning collaboration, Diane Siebert and Wendell Minor create a joyful, singing celebration of this country's Heartland, the Midwest. It is a land where wheat fields grow and cornfields stretch across the plains to create a patchwork quilt in hues of yellow, green, and brown; a land where herds of cattle graze in pastures draped in lush, green grass, and a newborn calf stands in the sun. And upon this land toils the farmer, strong and proud, whose weathered face tells a tale of a life of work that's never done. The Heartland's a land where, despite man's power, nature reigns.
Hero for the Hungry: The Life and Work of Norman Borlaug
Can a quiet Iowa farm boy grow up to change the world? Norman Ernest Borlaug did. Hero for the Hungry is a moving and informative biography of the 20th-century American agriculture scientist whose innovations in crop varieties founded the Green Revolution and fed hundreds of millions of people around the world.
How Did That Get in My Lunchbox?
One of the best parts of a young child's day is opening a lunchbox and diving in. But how did that delicious food get there? From planting wheat to mixing dough, climbing trees to machine-squeezing fruit, picking cocoa pods to stirring a vat of melted bliss, here is a clear, engaging look at the steps involve in producing some common foods. Health tips and a peek at basic food groups complete the menu.
How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World
This colorfully illustrated story follows a young girl as she travels around the world gathering the ingredients to make an apple pie. She goes to Italy for semolina wheat, to Sri Lanka for cinnamon, to England for a milk cow, and to Vermont for apples. The book ends with a recipe for apple pie. The story makes a nice introduction to concepts of trade, culture, and cooking.
Out of the Dust
This intimate novel, written in stanza form, poetically conveys the head dust and wind of Oklahoma along with the discontent of narrator Billie Jo who relates the hardships of living on her family's wheat farm in Oklahoma during Dust Bowl years of the Depression. ALA notable children's book, ALA best book for Young Adults, SLJ best book of the year.
PB&J Hooray!
From peanut, grape, and wheat seeds to sandwich, PB&J Hooray! is all about how peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are made. The story begins with the kitchen and works backward to the shopping, delivery, production, harvesting, farming, and planting processes! In fun, rhythmic language, readers discover how peanuts become peanut butter, grapes are made into jelly, and wheat turns into bread.
Pancakes for Breakfast
This wordless picture book follows the trials of a little old lady who attempts to make pancakes for her breakfast. The illustrations walk through the process of procuring the ingredients to make pancakes, including collecting eggs, milking a cow, and churning butter.
Pancakes, Pancakes!
Read the fictional story of "Jack" who is gathering the ingredients for his mother to make pancakes. Jack must visit the mill for flour, collect eggs from the hen, and milk from the cow.
Still There Was Bread (Release Date: October 15, 2024)
Nana is coming to visit! She's going to teach Little Pickle to make her famous "Nana rolls"—a special bread recipe that Nana's nana taught her. Together, they gather ingredients: eggs and milk, flour and oil, sugar and salt, yeast and water. As they mix them together to form the dough, Nana shares stories about how making this treasured family recipe has changed over the years—and how it's sustained their family through good times and hard ones. And through the times when they could be together—and the times when they couldn't. Because sometimes a simple loaf of bread can mean so much more.
Thank a Farmer
Bread, milk, wool, fruits, and vegetables: things that fill our day to day lives. But where, and who, do they come from? Across wheat fields and city rooftop gardens, mushroom beds and maple forests, trace food and clothing back to the people who harvested and created them. Thank a Farmer gently emphasizes the importance of agriculture and reminds readers to give thanks to farmworkers around the world.