California’s Climate-Smart Farms
Lesson Plans
Grades6, 7, 8Biology, Earth and Space Sciences
This resource has been reviewed by SubjectToClimate's climate scientists and verified for scientific accuracy and up-to-date information. Learn about our review process →
Provided by Center for Ecoliteracy
What it is
- 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.
Teaching tips
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.
From the scientist review
The science in this lesson is very thorough, with links to additional, reputable sources as needed. Food production accounts for roughly 30% of our greenhouse gas emissions. This is vital to understand if we are going to address the climate crisis.
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