Grade: 7th

02 Feb 2024

Customizable Middle School Arts Program

August-June

Do your students have a strong sense of creativity? A passion for certain types of art or performing? Do you want to give them the chance to discover something new through interdisciplinary studies? Our Arts Educators can customize programs and activities into a personalized program that can excite students’ interests.

19 Dec 2023

Know your Zone

August-June

The USDA uses zones to define certain growing areas. Our farm, located in zone 6b, faces challenges from weather, pests, and soil conditions. Join us as we learn and engage with the farmers as they tackle and solve daily challenges in our zone. 

Ohio Science Standards:

  • 7.LS.2 In any particular biome, the number, growth and survival of organisms and populations depend on biotic and abiotic factors.

NGSS Standards:

  • MS-LS1-1. Conduct an investigation to provide evidence that living things are made of cells; either one cell or many different numbers and types of cells.
  • MS-LS1-2.Develop and use a model to describe the function of a cell as a whole and ways the parts of cells contribute to the function.
  • MS-LS1-4 From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes. Use argument based on empirical evidence and scientific reasoning to support an explanation for how characteristic animal behaviors and specialized plant structures affect the probability of successful reproduction of animals and plants respectively.
  • MS-LS1-5 From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes Construct a scientific explanation based on evidence for how environmental and genetic factors influence the growth of organisms.
  • MS-LS4-5. Gather and synthesize information about technologies that have changed the way humans influence the inheritance of desired traits in organisms.

Ohio Social Studies Standards:

  • Geography – Spatial Thinking and Skills: Maps and other geographic representations can be used to trace the development of human settlement over time.
  • Geography – Human Systems: Geographic factors promote or impede the movement of people, products and ideas.
  • Economics – Scarcity: The variability in the distribution of productive resources in the various regions of the world contributed to specialization, trade and interdependence. 

Vocabulary:

zone, mapping, crop, seeds, cultivation, season, temperature, region, germination, heirloom

13 Dec 2023

Inquiry on the Farm

December – February

 Scientific inquiry is a way of doing science that includes making observations, forming hypotheses, designing studies, collecting data, and drawing conclusions. While spending time in the greenhouse and other growing spaces, even in winter, students will design and conduct a simple investigation to learn about farming through the inquiry process.

Ohio Science Standards:

  • SIPA Grade 3-5: Observe and ask questions about the world that can be answered through scientific investigations.
  • SWK Grade 3-5: Science is a way of knowing about the world around us based on evidence from experimentation and observations. 
  • SWK Grade 6-8: Science is a way of knowing about the world around us based on evidence from experimentation and observations.
  • SWK Grade 6-8: Science is a continual process and the body of scientific knowledge continues to grow and change.

NGSS Standards:

  • 3-LS4-3 Construct an argument with evidence that in a particular habitat some organisms can survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all. 
  • 4-PS3-2.Make observations to provide evidence that energy can be transferred from place to place by sound, light, heat, and electric currents.
  • 5-ESS3-1 Obtain and combine information about ways individual communities use science ideas to protect the Earth’s resources and environment.
  • 5-PS3-1:Use models to describe that energy in animals’ food (used for body repair, growth, motion, and to maintain body warmth) was once energy from the sun.
  • 5-ESS3-1 Obtain and combine information about ways individual communities use science ideas to protect the Earth’s resources and environment.
  • MS – LS2-1. Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for the effects of resource availability on organisms and populations of organisms in an ecosystem.
  • MS-PS3-3. Apply scientific principles to design, construct, and test a device that either minimizes or maximizes thermal energy transfer.  

Social Studies Standards (K-8):

  • Geography – Spatial Thinking and Skills: Spatial thinking examines the relationships among people, places and environments by mapping and graphing geographic data. Geographic data are compiled, organized, stored and made visible using traditional and geospatial technologies. Students need to be able to access, read, interpret and create maps and other geographic representations as tools of analysis.
  • Government – Civic Participation and Skills: Civic participation embraces the ideal that an individual actively engages in his or her community, state or nation for the common good. Students need to practice effective communication skills including negotiation, compromise and collaboration. Skills in accessing and analyzing information are essential for citizens in a democracy.
  • Economics – Economic Decision Making and Skills: Effective economic decision making requires students to be able to reason logically about key economic issues that affect their lives as consumers, producers, savers, investors and citizens. Economic decision-making and skills engage students in the practice of analyzing costs and benefits, collecting and organizing economic evidence and proposing alternatives to economic problems.

Vocabulary: Observation, Investigation, Comparative Question, Data, Analysis

08 Dec 2023

Maps and Topography

August-June

Maps come in all shapes and sizes and they are useful in many different ways. Students will explore how land surfaces are represented on different styles of flat and topographic maps as well as how different maps are used.

Ohio Science Standards:

  • 8.ESS.4 Evidence of the dynamic changes of Earth’s surface through time is found in the geologic record.

Ohio Social Studies Standards:

  • SS Grade 7 – Maps and other geographic representations can be used to trace the development of human settlement over time.
  • SS Grade 8 – Modern and historical maps and other geographic tools are used to analyze how historic events are shaped by geography

Vocabulary:

topography, contours, scale, legend, symbol, degrees, orientation

Video Introduction: CLICK HERE for a video with a Greenacres educator