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California’s Climate-Smart Farms

Provided by: Center for Ecoliteracy |Published on: August 15, 2024

Lesson Plans

678

Synopsis

This collection of resources includes five lessons teachers can use to introduce students to the relationship between climate change impacts and agriculture, using California farms as examples.
Each lesson has three activities that each take about 50 minutes.
The lessons feature California farms, located in Marin, Sonoma, Yolo, Santa Cruz, and San Diego counties.

Related Teaching Resources

Subjects: Biology, Earth and Space Sciences

Authors: Center for Ecoliteracy

Region: California

Languages: English

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Teaching Materials

Positives

Having students practice writing in the claim, evidence, and reasoning format will help them improve their informative and persuasive writing skills.
Many of the activities are inquiry-based and will keep students engaged.

Prerequisites

Many of the activities require teachers to gather materials beforehand.
The first Resource link in the Dairy and Greenhouse Gases lesson will not work.
A few of the Resource links in the Wheat, Soil, and Climate Change lesson are broken and the how-to reference for making a Berlese funnel will not work.
In the Strawberries, Pests, and Climate Change lesson, the first Resource link and the second Digging Deeper link for Activity 2 are broken.
The video for the Extension Ideas in the Seeds and Climate Resilience lesson is unavailable.

Differentiation & Implementation

To increase student engagement and foster community relationships, students can take a field trip to a local farmers market.
Teachers who wish to use all of the lessons in the classroom can help students construct a journal to reflect on their experiences as they learn about California farms and climate change.
After learning about a few California farms, students can research a local farm and write a speech, essay, or other artifact to inform others about this farm and how it relates to climate change.

Scientist Notes

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Resource Type and Format

About the Partner Provider

Center for Ecoliteracy

The Center for Ecoliteracy advances the teaching and modeling of sustainable practices in K–12 schools. The organization builds partnerships and the capacity of K–12 schools to support healthy, sustainable school communities and food systems change in schools. The Center for Ecoliteracy leads systems change initiatives, publishes original books and resources, facilitates conferences and professional development, and provides strategic consulting. The organization works at multiple levels of scale, with local, regional, state, and national programs.

Related Teaching Resources

All resources can be used for your educational purposes with proper attribution to the content provider.