Agricultural Literacy Curriculum Matrix

Students use the visual representation of a web to explore the role of agriculture in their daily lives and understand how most of the necessities of life can be traced back to the farm. Grades 3-5

agriculture: the science or practice of farming, including cultivation of the soil for the growing of crops and the rearing of animals to provide food, wool, and other products

fabric: cloth or other material produced by weaving or knitting fibers

farming: the activity or business of growing crops and raising livestock

flower: the part of a plant that contains reproductive parts and attracts pollinators

forestry: the science of caring for or cultivating forests, and the management of growing timber

How do you define the word agriculture? The Merriam-Webster Dictionary states that it is the “science, art, or practice of cultivating the soil, producing crops, and raising livestock and in varying degrees the preparation and marketing of the resulting products.” An accurate definition, but this definition doesn’t impart the integral nature or importance of agricultural products—food, clothing, and shelter—in our daily lives. Surely there is a better way to define agriculture!

This lesson uses graphic organizers as a teaching strategy to explore the definition of agriculture. Graphic organizers are research-based visual instructional tools that facilitate learning and student achievement. The use of graphic organizers is a teaching strategy that meets the needs of most learners, especially visual learners. How do they work? Graphic organizers relate new concepts to the learners’ preexisting understandings, which helps them to recognize new relationships between concepts. These associations help students to retain what they have learned. In addition, these visual tools may be used to help access student knowledge and identify student misconceptions.

One type of graphic organizer is the concept map (also referred to as a concept web), which provides a technique for visualizing the relationships between different concepts. A concept map is a diagram showing the relationships between concepts, which are represented by words or pictures and connected with labeled arrows in a downward-branching, hierarchical structure. The relationship between concepts is articulated in linking phrases (e.g., gives rise to, results in, is required by, or contributes to) written on the lines that connect concepts. Linking phrases can be as simple as are, can be, or are part of. After the initial map is drawn, concepts should be cross-linked to other relevant relationships, often drawing lines going across to other group maps.

Agriculture is a big umbrella term that includes many concepts, ranging from farm to fork and from field to fabric. In addition to food and fiber, agriculture also provides numerous products for industrial use such as linseed oil for paint and corn for fuel. Older students working in groups using pencil and paper or marker and dry-erase board can create a concept web with the 5-Fs of agriculture: farming, food, fabric, forestry, and flowers. This lesson plan has been designed for young learners who will focus on one aspect of agriculture—farming. Instead of words, these young learners will use pictures and yarn to create a simple concept web and the relationships, or linking phrases, will be discussed as a class while the concept web is completed.

1. Ask the students, "What kinds of things do you use every day?" (You should get answers like food, clothes, books, paper, computers, balls, water, TV, etc.)
2. Discuss with the students that the items we use every day are either grown or mined (with a few exceptions, like the sun!). If the item is grown specifically for people, it is a product of agriculture.
3. Ask the students "Where do we get the things we use every day?" Most students will say, “at the grocery store!” Some might say, “a factory.” Tell the students that the store is a distribution center where we buy things and that the factory is a place where “raw” ingredients, grown for us (wheat for bread) or provided by nature (petroleum for fuel or plastic), are put together to make a product that ends up in the store.
4. Ask your students, "What is agriculture?" Have the students offer their answers and use the information found in the Background Agricultural Connections and the Vocabulary sections of this lesson to define the word "agriculture." Help the students identify their connection to agriculture by recognizing that food, fabric, flowers, and forestry (wood) comes from agriculture.

Preparation

Print and cut out the Farm Web Graphics. The 30, four-inch color images can be laminated for this activity. You may also purchase the My Farm Web Kit.

This activity may be conducted inside or outside; either way, you’ll need about 10 square feet of floor space. The students will place a picture and then the connecting yarn.

Activity 1: Concept Picture Web

1. Ask the students, "Where does agriculture begin?" (On a farm.) 
2. Guide the students to understand that agriculture begins on a farm and there all kinds of farms. Cattle ranches for beef and leather; dairy farms for milk and all the products made from milk; orchards that grow apples to make juice and apple pies; pig farms for pepperoni, bacon, and ham; grain farms that grow corn for fuel or corn syrup for soda, and wheat for bread; cotton farms for blue jeans; and tree farms for paper and landscaping. In fact, there is a different kind of farm for nearly every type of product. Farms specialize in what they grow based upon their location (climate and soil), and farmers choose only a few crops because the type of equipment used to plant and harvest each crop is very specific and expensive.
3. Inform students they are now going to create a “farm web” to help them understand agriculture and where the items they use every day come from.
4. Have students move to the area where they will build the farm web. 
5. Place the farm picture in the center of the floor. Mix up the remaining pictures and either put them in a pile or pass a picture to each student.
6. Ask the students, “Which pictures will go closest to the farm picture?” (The pictures of plants or animals that are grown or raised on a farm go closest.)
7. Students with products made from ingredients produced on a farm should place their pictures onto the web after the farm-raised item is placed.
8. As each picture is placed, ask the students to use a linking phrase such as dairy cows make milk (the word make is the linking word) to describe how their items connect to the web. Discuss each new connection as the pictures are placed.
9. When all the pictures have been correctly placed, review the linking phrases and ask students if they think other pictures could be added to the web.
10. As a conclusion to the activity, read aloud one or more of the recommended books and ask students where the products mentioned in the books would fit into their farm web. 

Activity 2: Concept Word Web

1. Extend the first activity by further defining agriculture using the 5-Fs of agriculture (see Vocabulary).
2. To make sure students understand concept maps and the content, ask students to create a concept web with words on paper or on a whiteboard.
3. Divide the students into five groups. Give each group a sheet of chart paper or disperse them along the whiteboard (draw a large rectangle, the size of the chart paper,  on the whiteboard for each group); write one of the 5-F words (farm, food, fabric, forestry, flowers) in the center of each paper or rectangle. For a large class, make two more groups and add the words “fuel” and “fish.”
4. Ask students to create a concept map around their group’s word by thinking about products they can associate with the word. Give them about 5 minutes. Next, ask them to create linking phrases.
5. Ask each group to share and explain their concept web with the class. (Paper maps should be posted on the wall.)
6. Conclude the instruction by announcing that the students have visually created a definition of agriculture.

1. https://www.northernag.net/how-much-popcorn-does-the-average-american-eat-each-year/
2. https://msu.edu/~sindijul/Fruits%20and%20Vegetables/BANANAS.htm
3. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/01/20/we-eat-100-acres-of-pizza-a-day-in-the-u-s/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.7a6ae1e2d003
4. https://columbustelegram.com/banner-press/news/fun-facts-about-the-food-we-eat/article_6cf8be89-0a8e-53f4-9a81-f9f2bfe1921b.html

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